GEORGE CALVERT 



AND 



CECILIUS CALVERT. 



'^^'-'^__ 

t?-"-' 



"MAKERS Of AMERICA' 



George Calvert 



AND 



Cecilius Calvert 

BARONS BALTIMORE 

OF BALTIMORE 



BY 



WM. HAND BROWNE 




NEW YORK 
DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY 

Publishers 



Copyright, 1890, 
By Dodd, Mead, and Company. 



All rights reserved. 



John Wilson and Son, Cambridge. 



PREFACE. 



Both George and Cecilius Calvert may claim the 
title of founders of Maryland. The original design 
belongs to the former ; the charter was a modifica- 
tion of his earlier charter of Avalon, and was, no 
doubt, drawn up in conformity with his suggestions ; 
only his personal favor with the king would have 
obtained a grant of such a nature, and nothing but 
what we may call the accident of his death prevented 
his being the first proprietary. On the other hand, 
it was Cecilius in whose name the charter was drawn, 
who sent out the first colonists and guided their 
earHest political steps, and who watched over the 
infancy of the colony and shielded it from ruin. 

The characters of the two seem much alike. 
There is the same patience, the same humanity of 
disposition, the same moderation, and the same 
steadiness of purpose. But in one respect there is 
a great difference for the biographer. George Cal- 
vert passed a large part of his active life in impor- 



vi PREFACE. 

tant public office, and in close connection with the 
great events and great actors of his day. His name 
is in all histories and memoirs of the time, and his 
letters are scattered through many collections. 
Cecilius, on the other hand, seenis to have studied 
to withdraw himself from publicity. Except in 
connection with his colony, his name scarcely ap- 
pears in history, and hardly any letters of his or 
addressed to him, other than those of a formal and 
official character, are known to exist. It requires 
close study of his acts, and of the motives that 
prompted them, before the dim personality of the 
man begins to take form and feature. Hence all 
biographical notices of Cecilius Calvert have been 
meagre, shadowy, and unsatisfactory. 

If the present sketch be in any degree less open 
to this reproach, it is due to the fact that the writer 
has had some advantages that were denied to his 
predecessors. In particular he has been able to 
consult, in their originals, the ancient papers of the 
Calvert family ; a body of manuscripts unknown to 
previous historians, recently discovered in England 
among the litter and rubbish of an old conservatory, 
rescued from destruction, and acquired by the Mary- 
land Historical Society. Some of these papers, as 
throwing new and important light on the events of 
the time, have been quoted at considerable length ; 



PREFACE. vii 

for instance the instructions to the first colonists, 
Leonard Calvert's narrative of the reduction of 
Kent Island, Baltimore's letter to his brother about 
the Jesuits, etc. 

The other chief sources have been the manuscript 
archives of the State^ the collections of the Maryland 
Historical Society, and the colonial records preserved 
in the PubUc Record Office, London, and made 
accessible to all the world by the admirable calendar 
of Mr. W. Noel Sainsbury. 

Among the printed works consulted, the writer 
desires to acknowledge special obligations to " The 
Foundation of Maryland," by Gen. Bradley T. John- 
son, and the " Life of George Calvert," by Lewis W. 
Wilhelm, Esq., two monographs published by the 
Maryland Historical Society. 

He has also to thank his friend, Mr. John H. In- 
gram of London, and the Rev. Andrew Clark, Fel- 
low of Lincoln College, Oxford, for their great kind- 
ness in searching manuscript records at his request. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 



The Calvert family — Verstegan's statement — Leonard 
Calvert — Birth of George Calvert — Education — 
Connection with Cecil — In Parliament — Marriage 
— Sent to Ireland — In favour with James I. — 
Knighted — Secretary of State — Favours the Spanish 
marriage — Grant of lands in Ireland — Children — 
Failure of the Spanish match — Calvert resolves to re- 
tire from office — Avows himself a Roman Catholic 
and resigns his Secretaryship — Is created Baron 
Baltimore, 1-14 

CHAPTER II. 

Calvert's interest in colonization — Plantation in New- 
foundland — Receives a grant of Avalon — Visits 
his Province — Description of Avalon — Descent of 
French cruisers — Captures French ships — Letter 
to Buckingham — Severity of the climate — Letter 
to the King — Sails for Virginia — Reception at 
Jamestown — Letter to Strafford — Receives grant 
of land on the Chesapeake — Pamphlet on England's 
policy — Death — Events at Avalon — Portrait of 
George Calvert, 15-34 

CHAPTER HI. 

Cecilius Calvert succeeds his father — Receives the char- 
ter of Maryland — Character of the charter — Pal- 



X CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

atinate governments — State of affairs in England — 
Plans of colonization — The Ark and Dove — Diffi- 
culties and hindrances — Enemies of the new colony 
— Attacks upon the charter — The first immigra- 
tion — Catholics and Protestants — Baltimore's in- 
structions — Religious toleration, . . . 35~57 

CHAPTER IV. 

Sailing of the Ark and Dove — Father White's journal — 
First impressions of Maryland — Friendly reception 
by the Indians — Settlement on St. Mary's river — 
Hostility in Virginia — William Claiborne and his 
post on Kent Island — Arrest of Smith — Outbreak 
at Jamestown — Fight on the Pocomoke — Claiborne 
superseded — Kent Island submits to Baltimore — 
Boteler and Smith give trouble — Leonard Calvert 
arrests them — Pacification of the island — Report of 
the Expedition — Boteler and Smith tried and con- 
demned — Boteler pardoned, .... 58-82 

CHAPTER V. 

The first Maryland Assembly— Assembly of 1637-8 — 
The Council and the Burgesses — Mode of elect- 
ing — Proxies — Baltimore dissents to the laws — The 
Assembly rejects his code — Secretary Lewger — A 
deadlock — Baltimore yields the initiative to the 
Assembly — A dilemma and its solution — Claiborne 
attainted — Health of the colonists — Monopolies — 
The Proprietary's revenues — Claiborne's petition 
and extraordinary proposal — The charter confirmed, 83-97 

CHAPTER VI. 

A serious problem — Religious toleration promised the 
first colonists — The colony favored by the leading 
Catholics and the heads of the Jesuit order — Priests 



CONTENTS. xi 

PAGE 

sent out — *' Rights of Holy Church " provided for 
— How far should these rights extend ? — An 
ivipetium in imperio — Grants of lands by Indian 
chiefs to the missionaries — Extravagant privileges 
— Baltimore applies to Rome to have the Jesuits 
withdrawn — Conditions of plantation — Relations 
of Church and State — Questions propounded to the 
Jesuits — An agreement — No lands to be held by 
any religious body or for its use — No secret 
trusts — The Assembly becomes representative — 
An anomaly — Death of Lady Baltimore, . . 98-118 

CHAPTER Vn. 

Letter to Leonard — Strong distrust of the Jesuits — The 
governor sharply censured — Reorganization of 
the government — Indian laws of succession — 
Civil war in England — Baltimore's attitude — The 
Arundels of Wardour — Leonard goes to England — 
Ingle's treasonable proceedings, arrest, and escape 
— Claiborne's machinations — Ingle seizes St. Mary's 
and plunders the Southern plantations — Claiborne's 
followers plunder Kent Island — Complications in 
Virginia — Leonard recovers the Province — His 
death — Stone appointed governor — The Seal of 
Maryland, 119-136 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Act concerning Religion — Puritans in the Province 
— Their grievances — The oath of fidelity — Toler- 
ation of Catholics — Proclamation of Charles 11. — 
Uneasiness in the Province — " Popish tyranny" — 
Sir William Davenant's adventure — Virginia to be 
reduced to obedience to Parliament — Maryland 
surreptitiously included in the commission — Clai- 
borne Parliamentary Commissioner — Maryland re- 



xii CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

duced and the government remodelled — Attempt to 
destroy the colony frustrated — Cromwell to decide 
the controversy — Fuller governs in the name of the 
Protector — The Puritan Act of Toleration — Crom- 
well's first letter — Stone marches on Providence — 
Is defeated and taken prisoner — Prisoners shot — 
Cromwell's second letter — The Province restored 
to Baltimore, ....... 1 37-159 

CHAPTER IX. 

Fendall governor — Reorganizes the militia — Agree- 
ment of fidelity — Quakers in Maryland — Order 
against them — Thurston's case — The Dutch on the 
Delaware — Utie's mission — Stuyvesant's wrath — 
Embassy of Herman and Waldron — Fruitless ne- 
gotiations — Fendall's attempt at revolution — The 
Burgesses declare themselves the Assembly — Fen- 
dall surrenders his commission and accepts one 
from the Burgesses — Superseded by Philip Cal- 
vert — Tried and sentenced — Sentence commuted — 
Final organization of the Assembly — Currency — 
Indian money — Tobacco — "Maryland money" 
coined by Baltimore — Charles Calvert governor — 
" Act of gratitude " — Death of Cecilius Calvert — 
State of the Province, 160-175 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



CHAPTER I. 



The origin of the Calvert family is obscure. There 
were Calverts, or Calverds, in Yorkshire as early as 
the fourteenth century, the name of Margareta Cal- 
verd appearing on the Durham Halmote, or Mano- 
rial Rolls, in 1366; but none of the genealogies 
affords us the means of tracing from these the family 
of the founder of Maryland. The biographies usu- 
ally speak of the Calverts as of Flemish extraction, 
which is not improbable, as Calvart or Calvaert is a 
well-known Flemish name; but their lineage — at 
least that of the Yorkshire Calverts — has never been 
traced back to Flanders. In the exemplification of 
arms issued in 1622 by Richard St. George, Norroy 
king of arms, to Sir George Calvert, it is stated on 
the authority of Verstegan, the antiquary and philo- 
logist, " that the said Sir George is descended of a 
noble and auntient familie of that surname in the 
earldom of Flanders, where they have lived long in 
great honor, and have had great possessions, their 
principall and auntient seat being at Warvickoe in 
the said province. And that in theis later tymes two 



2 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

brethren of that surname, vid: Jaques Calvert, lord 
of Severe, two leagues from Gaunt, remayned in the 
Netherland broyles on the side of the Kinge of Spayne, 
and hath a sonne who at this present is in honour- 
able place and office in the ParHament Courte at 
Macklyn ; and Levinus Calverte the younger brother 
tooke parte with the States of Holland, and was by 
them ymployed as their agent with Henry the fourth 
late Kinge of Fraunce, which Levinus Calvert left a 
Sonne in France, whom the foresaid Kinge enter- 
tayned as a gentleman of his bed chamber." He 
goes on to say, on the same authority, that the pro- 
per armorial bearings of the Calverts are, " or, three 
martletts sables, with this creast, vizt., the upper 
part or halves of two launces, the bandroll of the 
first, sables, and the second, or; " and then declares 
that the arms which the Calverts have borne in Eng- 
land are " paley of six pieces, or and sables, a bend 
counterchanged," to which he adds, as a crest, the 
two half-lances with their bandrolls, or small banners, 
of black and gold standing in a ducal crown. 

It would seem from this that Norroy did not quite 
see his way clear to affiliate Sir George to the 
Flernish Calverts; but he has no objection to inti- 
mate it heraldically by the addition of the Flemish 
crest as an honorable augmentation to his proper 
ancestral bearings. 

Our earliest certain knowledge of the family 
begins with Leonard, the father of George, who was 
living in' the time of Elizabeth in or near the town 
of Danby Wiske, in the valley of the Swale, York- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 3 

shire. All that we know of Leonard Calvert is that 
his father's name was John, and that he was a 
country gentleman, apparently in easy circumstances, 
who owned land and raised cattle — a fact which at 
a later time gave an enemy of George Calvert an 
opportunity to sneer at him as " the son of a grazier " 
— that he married Alicia Crossland, a lady of gentle 
birth, and that he acquired the estate of Kiplin, in 
the same valley, in the latter part of Elizabeth's 
reign. 

Either on this estate of Kiplin, or in the village 
of that name, George Calvert, the eldest son of his 
parents, was born about the year 1580. But few 
particulars of his youth are recorded. At the early 
age of fourteen he entered Trinity College, Oxford, 
as a commoner, and took his bachelor's degree in 
1597. That he acquired a good knowledge of Latin 
is shown by a poem in that language deploring the 
death of Sir Henry Unton, ambassador to France ; 
and it is also likely that here he laid the foundation 
of that acquaintance with French, Italian, and Span- 
ish which afterward stood him in good stead in his 
diplomatic career. 

His college studies ended, he travelled on the 
Continent, where it is probable that he made his 
first acquaintance with Sir Robert Cecil, afterward 
his patron and the founder of his fortunes, who had 
been sent by Elizabeth on an embassy to the court 
of France, to knit more closely the bonds of alliance 
with Henry IV. 

On Elizabeth's death, in 1603, Cecil was con- 



4 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

tinued by James in the office of Secretary of State, 
and we already find Calvert among his friends. We 
may safely ascribe to Cecil's influence the fact that 
Calvert was associated with him in the management 
of certain estates that had been settled on the queen. 
In the same year he had a seat in James's first Par- 
liament as a member for the Cornish borough of 
Bossiney, and thus took his first steps in public life. 

A year or so later he married his first wife, Anne, 
the daughter of John Mynne, a gentleman of ancient 
family in Hertfordshire; and their eldest son, 
Cecilius, named after his patron Cecil, was born in 
1606. 

In 1605 Calvert received his master's degree at 
Oxford, on the occasion of the king's visit to that 
university. The ceremonies were unusually mag- 
nificent, the Duke of Lennox and the Earls of Ox- 
ford and Northumberland heading the long list of 
candidates, of whom Calvert was the last. On this 
occasion an honorary degree was bestowed upon 
Cecil, who was already a master of arts of Cam- 
bridge. 

Soon after his leaving the university, Calvert be- 
came Cecil's private secretary, and was appointed by 
the king clerk of the crown and of assize in County 
Clare, Ireland, an office of importance, resembling 
that of an attorney-general. This was the first link 
connecting Calvert with Ireland, in which kingdom 
he was afterward to hold considerable estates and a 
place on the roll of nobility. 

The death of Cecil in 16 12, though it deprived 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 5 

Calvert of an attached and powerful friend, did not 
lessen the royal favor to him; and in 16 13 he was 
appointed clerk to the. Privy Council, and was sent 
on a mission to Ireland to report on the success of 
James's new policy of bringing the Irish to conformity 
with the religion and obedience to the law of Eng- 
land. Like all similar experiments, this policy had 
produced wide-spread and angry discontent among 
the native Irish, and several commissions were ap- 
pointed to hear and report on their grievances. 

Calvert was a member of two of these commis- 
sions, and his ready pen had doubtless a large share 
in the preparation of their reports, which seem to 
have been drawn up with great care and in a just 
and equitable spirit. They dwell especially on the 
harmful influence of the Jesuits; a point worth 
noting, as we shall see later that his son and suc- 
cessor entertained a strong dislike and suspicion of 
that order. 

Calvert had also received other marks of royal 
confidence, and had been sent on a mission to the 
French court in 16 10 on the occasion of the acces- 
sion of Louis XIII. His course seemed now steadily 
upward; the king liked him, trusted him, and em- 
ployed him in many ways. He helped James in his 
diatribe against the Dutch theologian Vorstius, 
whose Arminian heresies the king, in his capacity of 
Defender of the Faith, felt bound to confute. 
Whether Calvert assisted in the conduct of the 
argument, or turned the king's vernacular into Latin, 
or merely transcribed James' notes, cannot be de- 



6 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

termined ; the latter, however, does not seem hkely, 
as Calvert wrote a remarkably illegible hand. In 
his correspondence he is often found apologizing for 
using the hand of an amanuensis, and he mentions 
once that Charles I. told him that he " writ as fair a 
hand to look upon afar off as any man in England ; 
but that when any one came near it, they were not 
able to read a word." On the whole, it seems most 
likely, as Calvert was a good Latinist, that he turned 
the king's English or French into Latin, to which 
James afterward added such graces and ornaments 
of vituperative rhetoric as the occasion, his dignity, 
and the polemic style of the age seemed to demand. 
In 1617 Calvert received the order of knighthood 
on the occasion of the marriage of the brother of 
Buckingham. The death of the able Cecil, and the 
fickle and capricious character of the ambitious and 
pleasure -loving duke, made the services of a pains- 
taking and conscientious servant like Calvert more 
valuable than ever. On the dismissal of Sir Thomas 
Lake in 1619 he was raised to the high office of Prin- 
cipal Secretary of State, a position somewhat resem- 
bUng that of a modern prime minister. Of these 
secretaries there were two, Calvert's colleague be- 
ing Sir Robert Naunton, a modest, unpretentious man 
of literary tastes, but of no political influence. 
Buckingham, who wanted the place for another, 
was chagrined at the appointment, but concealed 
his annoyance, and carried the news himself to Cal- 
vert. The king sent for him and asked him various 
questions, among the rest about his wife and her 



GEORGE AXD CECILIUS CALVERT. 7 

character ; a point on which he laid stress, because 
he held the offences of Calvert's predecessor as due, 
in great measure, to his wife ; and in a harangue in 
the Star Chamber had warned his secretaries against 
trusting their wives with secrets of state. Calvert 
reassured the king on this point, and bore affection- 
ate testimony to his wife's virtue. 

This important office, which of necessity drew him 
into the vortex of European politics, came to Cal- 
vert at a critical juncture in the affairs of England 
and Europe ; and we may well believe the statement 
that he hesitated before accepting it. He was not, 
like Buckingham, a man of briUiant talent and bound- 
less confidence in his own abilities, nor was he of 
those who find the most attractive fishing in troubled 
waters. Calvert's talents were solid: he was cau- 
tious, laborious, exact, of unimpeachable integrity, 
and a true lover of his country ; and he could not 
have failed to see the heavy storm-clouds gathering 
on the poHtical horizon. A great continental strug- 
gle was impending: the Bohemians had lighted a 
torch which was setting all Europe ablaze ; and this 
very twelvemonth saw James's son-in-law, the Elector 
Palatine, crowned king at Prague and stripped of 
his hereditary dominions. Spain and France were 
rivals for the friendship of England : alliance with 
either was sure to make of the other a dangerous 
enemy: England itself was divided against itself. 
Calvert seems to have arrived at the conclusion that 
Spain would be the better friend or the more for- 
midable foe ; and he favoured the proposed marriage 



8 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

of Prince Charles with the Infanta Maria, daughter 
of PhiHp III., although the majority in Parliament 
and in England thought otherwise. 

Calvert received a further mark of the king's con- 
fidence in 1620, and was made one of the commis- 
sioners for the office of treasurer — in commission 
since Cecil's death — his colleague being Sir Lionel 
Cranfield. He also received a pension of ;^t,ooo 
and a subsidy on raw silk imported. This subsidy, 
it may be observed, was confirmed or regranted by 
Charles I. in 1627, and surrendered in 163 1 for a 
pension of ;^i,ooo. 

The ParHament of 1621 met amid great excite- 
ment. Was James to draw his sword for his chil- 
dren's rights, and thus commit England to the Pro- 
testant side, or was he not? If he was, would the 
Commons be liberal in their supplies of money? 
The king was, as usual, distracted by inconsistent 
desires. He wanted money desperately, but he also 
wanted peace: he felt keenly the sufferings of his 
daughter, but he could not throw off the influence 
of Gondomar, nor give up his cherished scheme of 
the Spanish marriage ; and he still clung to the notion 
that a middle course was possible, and that he might 
act the part of a peacemaker. 

Calvert sat in this ParHament, through Wentworth's 
influence, as a member for Yorkshire, Wentworth 
himself being his colleague, and was one of the 
minority that supported the Spanish poHcy of the 
court, while at the same time he tried to act the part 
of a conciliator between the king and the country 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 9 

party; a task for which his moderate, grave, and 
pacific disposition well fitted him, though it grew 
daily more difficult as tempers rose and the estrange- 
ment widened. He was known to favour the Spanish 
cause, and this cast a shadow of suspicion on his 
actions. When he urged them not to leave the 
king's hands tied for want of money at this critical 
juncture, the Commons said they were ready to give, 
and give freely, if he would only assure them that 
the money would be used against Spain and that 
the Prince of Wales would marry a Protestant wife. 
Calvert, knowing the king's secret wishes, could not 
give. this assurance, and so the struggle went on. 

Still, though not popular with the popular party, 
Calvert was not obnoxious to it, and the king often 
used him as a medium for communicating his wishes 
orally to the House. The French ambassador, Til- 
lieres, writing at this time, stated that the control 
of all public affairs really rested in Buckingham and 
Calvert. The latter he describes as " an honorable, 
sensible, well-minded man, courteous toward strang- 
ers, full of respect toward ambassadors, zealously 
intent upon the welfare of England ; but by reason 
of all these good qualities, entirely without consid- 
eration or importance." If he means such consider- 
ation and importance as Buckingham enjoyed, he 
was right. Calvert was no ambitious schemer to 
whom it was necessary to surround himself with a 
crowd of partisans and tools of every rank ; nor was 
he a splendid grandee, dazzling men's eyes by his 
magnificence. But if he means that the Secretary 



lO GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

was a political nonentity, the records of Parliament 
prove the contrary. He often spoke, and his words 
always commanded attention and respect. He was 
of consideration from the unblemished integrity of 
his character, and from the wisdom, sincerity, and 
moderation of his counsels, and he was of impor- 
tance because he was known to possess the confi- 
dence of the king. But it was his misfortune to be 
the mouthpiece of a master in whose sincerity the 
Commons trusted little, and in whose constancy not 
at all. 

It is not necessary to go, as some have gone, to 
the fascinations of Gondomar, to explain Calvert's 
adherence to the Spanish side. He still believed 
Spain to be, what she had unquestionably been in 
the preceding reign, the most formidable power in 
Europe. In an alliance with Spain, as he thought, 
lay England's safety. The king strongly favoured 
this alliance, could he only make up his mind. Now, 
if there was to be an alliance with Spain, the closer 
and firmer that alliance the better; and nothing 
could knit it so close as the Spanish marriage. As 
for the rehgious question, if the prince wedded a 
daughter of France, there would be the same diffi- 
culty; and as for an alhance with a Protestant Ger- 
man house, even if James had not thought such a 
match unspeakably beneath him, his daughter's un- 
happy experience put that out of the question. 
There can be no doubt that Calvert in his consist- 
ent advocacy of the Spanish policy believed that he 
was serving his country as well as his king. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. n 

The king rated at their due worth the faithful 
services of his Secretary, and on February i8th, 
1621^ granted him a manor of 2,300 acres in County 
Longford, Ireland. These lands were held under 
the condition that all settlers upon them should 
take the oath of supremacy and " be conformable in 
point of religion ; " and when Calvert, four years 
later, made profession of the Roman Catholic faith, 
he surrendered his patent and received it back with 
the religious clause omitted. These Longford es- 
tates were then erected into the manor of Baltimore, 
from which he took his baronial title. 

In the next year Calvert had the misfortune to 
lose his wife, to whom he was tenderly attached, 
who died August 8th, 1622, leaving a family of ten 
children, the eldest of whom, Cecilius, was only 
about sixteen years old. Two other sons, Leonard 
and George, afterward had a share in the founda- 
tion of Maryland, and both died in the New World ; 
Anne, the eldest daughter, married William Pease- 
ley; Grace, the fourth daughter, married Sir Robert 
Talbot, a kinsman of the earl of Tyrconnel; and 
of the others, Francis, Henry, Dorothy, Elizabeth, 
and Helen, little more than the names is known. 
An eleventh child, John, died in infancy. In mem- 
ory of this beloved wife, Calvert erected a monu- 
ment, which is still standing, in the parish church of 
Hertingfordbury, Hertfordshire. 

In 1623 occurred the memorable journey of Prince 
Charles and Buckingham to Spain, 'in disguise, which 
was to have such an unexpected ending and such 



12 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

momentous consequences. For a while all seemed 
to go well: James was delighted, and Calvert was 
busy drawing up the marriage contract and making 
preparations for the reception of the Spanish bride. 
The king, who, in Buckingham's absence, relied e^v 
tirely on the Secretary, was highly pleased with \j^ 
diligence and devotion, and testified his satisfaction 
by making him a member of the Q ; \cil of York. 

The sudden return of Charles , , . Buckingham 
without the bride, and the outburst of popular joy 
that followed, shattered Calvert's hopes and warned 
him of the approaching end of his political career. 
In the next Parliament, 1624, he had a seat, not for 
his native county, but for Oxford. Buckingham 
had veered round to the popular side, and sought 
the favour of Parliament by a display of animosity 
to his former supporters: the king, feeble in mind 
and body, and a mere puppet in the hands of his 
adored " Steenie," was now all on the French side. 
Calvert could not follow these high examples, even 
to please the king. He believed that England was 
drifting into a war with Spain, and he could not 
pretend to approve the course that things were tak- 
ing. The favourite now openly sought his disgrace : 
the king grew cold and suspicious : snares were laid 
to entrap him, if possible, in something that might 
be a ground for impeachment. 

But as Buckingham's plans prospered, his hostiHty 
to the Secretary grew less. Though violent, domi- 
neering, and unscrupulous, he was not coldly vindic- 
tive, and was placable enough to those who did not 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 13 

cross his schemes or stand in his way. The old 
king's temper changed with the favourite's. Calvert 
wisely took the advantage of this transient gleam of 
fair weather to steer the bark of his fortunes out of 
'he perilous seas of poUtical life. He avowed to 
he king that he had become a convert to the faith 
of Rome, and -^sked to be allowed to resign his 
secretaryship i retire to private life. 

His reque .vas granted. Calvert, according to 
the custom of the time, negotiated with Sir Albert 
Morton to vacate the secretaryship in his favour for 
the sum of ;£6,ooo. The king, whose old affection 
for him had returned, retained him in the Privy 
Council, notwithstanding his change of rehgion; 
and on February i6th, 1625, elevated him to the 
Irish peerage as Baron Baltimore of Baltimore, in the 
County of Longford. In the original patent (in the 
possession of the Maryland Historical Society) the 
reasons for his elevation are set forth as follows : 

" We therefore, nearly considering in the person of 
Our well-beloved and entirely faithful Councillor, 
George Calvert, Knight, gravity of manners, singu- 
lar gifts of mind, candour, integrity, and prudence, 
as well as benignity and urbanity toward all men, 
and also reflecting in Our mind with how great fidel- 
ity, diligence, and alacrity he has served Us, both in 
Our kingdom of Ireland, whither, not long ago, he 
was specially sent upon Our very weighty and most 
important business there, as also in this Our King- 
dom of England, throughout many years, but espe- 
cially since he was advanced near Our person to the 



14 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

place and honour of a Councillor and Our principal 
Secretary ; and willing that son|e singular mark of 
Our royal favour may r-^ffaillRmto the aforomid 
George and unto his posterity forever, by which not 
only he, but others also may perceive how highly 
We prize the fidehty and obedience of the said 
George, and how much We desire to reward his vir- 
tues and merits, We have decreed him to be in- 
scribed among the number of the peers of Our said 
Kingdom of Ireland: Know ye therefore that 
We, of Our especial grace, and of Our sure knowl- 
edge and mere motion, have exalted, preferred, and 
created the aforesaid George Calvert, Knight, unto 
the estate, degree, dignity, and honour of Baron 
Baltimore of Baltimore, within Our Kingdom of Ire- 
land." 

Within a few weeks from the issue of this patent 
James died, but his successor, Charles, did not with- 
draw his favour from the late Secretary, On the con- 
trary, he wished to retain him in the council, offering 
to dispense with the oath of supremacy in his case ; 
but Baltimore was firm in his resolution to retire 
finally from official life. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 15 



w% 



CHAPTER II.- 

Relieved of the burdens and anxieties of public 
business, which had already seriously impaired his 
health, Calvert now had leisure to turn his attention 
to his interests in the New World. He had long 
taken much interest in the colonizing schemes which 
were so rife at the time, and had associated himself 
with several. As early as 1609 he had been a mem- 
ber of the second Virginia company, and was also 
one of the provisional council for the management 
of the affairs of that colony after the revocation of 
the charter, and one of the eighteen councillors of 
the New England Company in 1622. 

The discovery of a northwest passage to Asia, 
thus avoiding the long and perilous voyage around 
the Cape of Good Hope, was the perpetual ignis- 
fatuus of the seventeenth century, and lured mariners 
ever northward to the regions of ice and desolation. 
Ignorance of isothermal lines was universal, and 
there would have seemed nothing unreasonable in 
expecting to find in Labrador the climate of Ireland. 
Experiments in colonization were made in lands far 
too much to the north ; and those who had rashly 
embarked in such ventures found their interest in 
keeping up a delusion which offered them a chance 
of escape. 



1 6 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

Several attempts had been made to settle New- 
foundland, and at various times the whole or part 
of the island had been granted to Sir Humphrey 
Gilbert, Sir Francis Bacon, and others ; but the at- 
tempts at colonization had gone no further than the 
establishment of a fishing station. Calvert, in 1620, 
purchased a plantation on the island from Sir Wil- 
liam Vaughan, which he named Avalon,' from the 
consecrated spot to which pious legend referred the 
introduction of Christianity into Britain. He sent 
out a number of colonists with proper implements 
and supplies, and placed his plantation in charge of 
a Captain Wynne, whose reports were encouraging. 
Buildings were erected, land brought into cultivation, 
seeds and plants sent out from England were doing 
well, there was nothing to be feared from Indians, 
the salt-works were promising, and the fishery was 
the finest in the world. 

These cheerful reports were confirmed by the ac- 
count of Captain Richard Whitbourne, whose " West- 
ward Hoe for Avalon " was pubhshed in 1622. Whit- 
bourne describes the island as almost an earthly 
paradise; strawberries and raspberries, pears and 
cherries, grow in abundance, and flowers of many 
kinds, including " red and white damask roses," 
perfume the balmy air. The groves are vocal with 
nightingales and other birds of song; the wild beasts 
are gentle and humane ; the harbours are eminently 

' It is not absolutely certain whether this name was given by Baltimore 
or one of the earlier adventurers. His settlement was usually called Ferry^ 
laud, and from this his letters are dated. 



I 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 17 

good, and in ^ John's harbou?he once saw a mer- 
maid. Coming down to the practical, he explains 
how profitable the fishery can be made under good 
commercial regulations, the want of which is all that 
hinders the prosperity of the colony. 

Calvert probably thought that if he had a more 
definite and paramount authority he could make 
Avalon a highly prosperous settlement ; so in this 
year, 1622, he appHed for a patent, and received a 
grant of the whole island. This, however, was su- 
perseded by a regrant in March, 1623, conveying to 
him the southeastern peninsula, which was erected 
into the province of Avalon by a royal charter issued 
April 7th. By this charter Calvert was given a pala- 
tinate or quasi-royal authority over the province, 
which was held in capite, by knight's service, with 
the condition of giving the king or his successors a 
white horse whenever he or they should visit those 
parts. 

During the busy years which preceded Calvert's 
retirement from public life, he had not been able to 
give much attention to the affairs of his infant plan- 
tation, where the master's eye was imperatively 
needed; and his affairs in Ireland occupied him 
^ for some time after he was released from the secre- 
taryship. We find him writing to Wentworth in 
1627: "I am . . . bound for a long journey, to a 
place which I have had a long desire to visit, and 
have now the opportunity and leave to do it. It is 
Newfoundland I mean, which it imports me, more 
than in curiosity only, to see, for I must either go 



1 8 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

and settle it in better order, or give it over and lose 
all the charge I have been at hitherto for other men 
to build their fortunes upon. And I had rather be 
esteemed a fool by some for the hazard of one 
month's journey, than to prove myself one certainly 
for six years by past if the business be now lost for 
the want of a little pains and care." 
. So in June of this year he visited Avalon in per- 
son, arriving at the end of July. Though he came 
at the most favourable season, and remained for but 
a month or two, so that he could scarcely have had 
time to visit the interior of the island, we cannot 
but think that when he compared the reality with 
Whitbourne's glowing descriptions and his own fancy- 
pictures built upon them, his disappointment must 
have been sharp. 

The Province of Avalon, for the name is still re- 
tained, is an irregular peninsula lying between the 
bays of Placentia and Trinity, and joined to the 
mainland by an isthmus three or four miles wide. 
It is deeply indented by Conception -Bay on the 
north and St. Mary's Bay on the south. Two prin- 
cipal ranges of rugged hills run down, the one to 
Conception Bay and the other to Trinity, and be- 
tween them lies a valley, more or less broken by 
hummocks and foot-hills. Smaller ridges form the 
back-bones of the other capes, forming so many 
water-sheds, giving rise to streams, of which one at 
least is a considerable river flowing into St. Mary's 
Bay. These hills are partly long flat-topped ridges 
and partly isolated craggy peaks with formidable 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 19 

precipices. The sides of these hills are clothed 
with a stunted vegetation, mostly of fir, junipers, and 
other coniferous trees, while the tops of the ridges 
and table-lands are barren stretches of sand and 
gravel, in some parts absolutely bare of soil, and 
strewn with boulders, and in others meagrely clothed 
with a poverty-stricken growth of heath and scrub. 
In the lower lands are great tracts of marsh and 
moss, forming a sponge several feet deep, with black 
pools dotted over the treacherpus bog. Only nar- 
row strips of soil are fitted for cultivation. 

All behind the little plantation lay this region of 
wild savagery, or bleak and hopeless desolation, and 
in front was the wild, stormy, and inhospitable sea. 
And the brief northern summer hid from him the 
worst enemy of all, the long, pitiless northern winter. 

Departing after a short visit, he spent the winter 
in England preparing for his return, which he made 
in the following summer, bringing with him Lady 
Baltimore, his second wife, all his family except his 
eldest son, Cecilius, and about forty colonists, so 
that the whole colony was raised to about one hun- 
dred souls. 

Troubles of an unexpected kind soon came upon 
him. In August we find him writing to Buckingham : 
" I owe your Grace an accompte of my actions and 
proceedings in this plantation, since under your 
patronage and by your favourable mediation to his 
Majestie I have transported myself e hither. I came 
to builde, and sett, and sowe, but am falne to fight- 
ing with Frenchmen, who have heere disquieted mee 



20 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

and many other of his Majesties subjects fishing in 
this land." 

The circumstances were these: Buckingham's 
war, as we may call it, with France had been de- 
clared the previous year, and French cruisers began 
to attack the English fisheries and outlying stations. 
But we will let Baltimore give the story in his own 
words : 

" One De la Rade of Dieppe, with three ships and 
four hundred men, many of them gentlemen of 
quality, and 'la fleur de la jeunesse de Normandie,' 
as some Frenchmen here have told us, came first 
into a harbour of mine called Capebroile, not above 
a league from the place where I am planted, and 
there surprising divers of the fishermen in their shal- 
lops at the harbour's mouthj within a short time after 
possessed themselves of two English ships within the 
harbour, with all their fishes and provisions, and had 
done the like to the rest in that place had I not 
sent them assistance with two ships of mine, one of 
three hundred and sixty tons and twenty- four pieces 
of ordnance, and another a bark of sixty tons with 
three or four small guns in her, and about a hundred 
men aboard us in all. These ships being discovered 
to move by a scout whom the French kept at the 
harbour's mouth, they stayed not weighing anchor, 
but let slip their cables and away to sea as fast as 
they could, leaving their booty and sixty-seven of 
their own men behind them on shore for haste. 
We gave them chase, but could not overtake them ; 
and that night I sent a company to fetch the sixty- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 21 

seven men out of the woods, fearing that, being 
well armed as we understood they were, and then in 
desperation, they might force some boat or weak 
ship or do other mischief ; and the next morning they 
were brought unto me hither, where I have been 
troubled and charged with them all summer. 

" Within a few days after advertisement was given 
me that De la Rade was gone into the Bay of Con- 
ception, some twenty leagues to the northward of 
this place, and there committed more spoil ; where- 
upon I sent forth the great ship again, with all the 
seamen I had here, and one of my sons with some 
gentlemen and others that attend me in this planta- 
tion ; but before they came near him he was again 
frighted by the Unicorn of London; having first 
taken divers English prisoners and carried them with 
him. From thence my ship and company, by my 
directions consorting with Captain Fearnes, a man 
of war, returned back to the southward, and in a 
harbour called Trepassee, where De la Rade first 
touched in the beginning of the summer and came 
from thence to us, they found six French ships, five 
of Bayonne and one of St. Jean de Luz, who had 
almost made their voyage and were near ready to 
return homewards. These we took for the hurt they 
have done us, and have sent them now for England, 
where they shall arrive safely, I hope, within youi 
Grace's admiral jurisdiction ; and I presume so much 
of your wonted favour as [that] in any part of this 
business that hath relation to my interest, your Grace 
will be pleased I shall be respected as one of your 



2 2 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

servants, and that you will pardon all errors of for- 
mality in the procedings. 

"Whether this French gentleman may return 
again when the ships are gone, I know not : if he do, 
we shall defend this place as well as we are able ; 
but for the time to come it much concerns his Maj- 
esty's service and the good of the kingdom (in my 
poor judgment) that two men-of-war at the least 
might be continued all the year, except it be the 
winter time, upon this coast for preserving of so 
many of his subjects, being all bred seamen, and 
their shipping and goods, which may easily be done 
by a contribution upon the fishery itself ; and it may 
very well bear it without any sensible burden to par- 
ticular men, if your Grace will be pleased to inter- 
cede unto his Majesty in that behalf, and that some 
principal owners of the west country may be con- 
ferred withal to that purpose before the next spring, 
and the contribution imposed here by his Majesty's 
authority. 

" I have desired this bearer, Mr. Peasley, some- 
time a servant to our late sovereign, whose company 
I have had here this summer, to attend your Grace 
on my behalf ; and I humbly beseech you to vouch- 
safe him access to your person, as there shall be oc- 
casion, with favour." 

The two ships that Baltimore speaks of sending 
out against De la Rade were the Ark and Dove, 
which afterward carried the first colonists to Mary- 
land, the son whom he sent on board was Leonard, 
afterward governor of Maryland, and William Pease- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 23 

ley was his son-in-law. As Baltimore's colony could 
hardly have furnished a hundred men fit for sea- 
fighting, we must conclude that his force was largely 
made up from the crews of English vessels in the 
harbour. The want of formality which he trusts 
Buckingham will overlook, was probably his non- 
possession of letters of marque. 

This letter never reached the hands for which it 
was intended. It is dated August 25th, 1628, and 
two days before, Buckingham had been stabbed by 
Felton at Portsmouth. By the ship that carried it 
Leonard Calvert and Peaseley returned to England, 
where Leonard petitioned the king that his father 
might have a share in certain prizes taken from the 
French by the ships Benediction and Victory, ap- 
parently in another affair, of which we have no ac- 
count ; and that letters of marque might be issued 
to him, antedated, so as to entitle him legally to his 
proportion of prize-money. Peaseley also petitioned 
the admiralty that one of the captured ships might 
be lent Baltimore to defend his plantation and the 
fisheries, and " in consideration of his good services " 
the Sainte Claude was lent him for a year and 
brought out to him by Leonard. 

But his good services against the French did not 
shield him from the attacks of domestic enemies. 
One Stourton, a Puritan minister at Ferryland, re- 
turning to England, laid a charge before the mayor 
of Plymouth that Baltimore was having the mass 
celebrated regularly in his chapel, and was showing 
special favour to the Catholic members of his colony. 



24 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

Stourton was sent before the Privy Council, who 
seem, from the expressions used in a letter of Bal- 
timore to the king, to have dismissed the charge. 

The dangers or the discomforts of life at Avalon 
seem to have been too much for Lady Baltimore, 
and she sailed in 1628 for Virginia, and remained 
for some time at Jamestown, as we know from a 
letter of Baltimore's in which he asks letters from 
the Privy Council to the governor of Virginia, in- 
structing him to facihtate Lady Baltimore's return 
to England. In the same letter he expresses a de- 
sire for a grant of land in Virginia, as the king had 
given him leave to choose any unoccupied part. 

While the pacific Baltimore, rather to his own 
surprise, was fighting Frenchmen, taking prizes, and 
rendering the knight's service demanded by his char- 
ter, a worse enemy than the plundering French was 
drawing near. The long and terrible northern win- 
ter soon set in, and both Baltimore, whose health 
had long been weak, and the greater part of his col- 
onists, suffered terribly. To add to his sufferings, 
he was forced to see that he had been deceived by 
false representations, and that his colony, on which 
he had spent, in all, about twenty thousand pounds, 
was a failure. He wrote to the king in August, 1629 : 

" I have met with difficulties and encumbrances 
here which in this place are no longer to be resisted, 
but enforce me presently to quit my residence and 
to shift to some other warmer climate of this new 
world, where the winters be shorter and less rigorous. 
For here your Majesty may please to understand that 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 25 

I have found by too dear bought experience, which 
other men, for their private interests, always con- 
cealed from me, that from the middle of October to 
the middle of May there is a sad fare of winter upon 
all this land; both sea and land so frozen for the 
greater part of the time, as they are not penetrable, 
no plant or vegetable thing appearing out of the 
earth until about the beginning of May, nor fish in 
the sea; beside the air so intolerable cold as it is 
hardly to be endured. By means whereof, and of 
much salt meat, my house hath been an hospital 
all this winter; of a hundred persons, fifty sick at 
a time, myself being one ; and nine or ten of them 
died. Hereupon I have had strong temptations to 
leave all proceedings in plantations, and being much 
decayed in my strength, to retire myself to my former 
quiet ; but my inclination carrying me naturally to 
these kind of works, and not knowing how better to 
employ the poor remainder of my days, than, with 
other good subjects, to further, the best I may, the 
enlarging your Majesty's empire in this part of the 
world, I am determined to commit this place to 
fishermen that are able to encounter storms and 
hard weather, and to remove myself with some forty 
persons to your Majesty's dominion Virginia; where, 
if your Majesty will please to grant me a precinct 
of land, with such privileges as the king your father, 
my gracious master, was pleased to grant me here, 
I shall endeavour, to the utmost of my power, to de- 
serve it." 

Charles replied; "Such is and ever lis-th been 



26 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

the estimation we make of the persons of our loving 
subjects who employ themselves in pabhc actions 
that tend to the good and glory of their country and 
the advancement of our service, as that we cannot 
but take notice of them, though of the meanest 
condition ; but much more a person of your quality, 
who have been so near a servant to our late dear 
father, of blessed memory. And seeing that your 
plantation in Newfoundland (as we understand by 
your letters) hath not answered your expectation, 
which we are informed you take so much to heart 
(having therein spent a great part of your means) as 
that you are now in pursuit of new countries. We, 
out of our princely care of you, well weighing that 
men of your condition and breeding are fitter for 
other employments than the framing of new planta- 
tions, which commonly have rugged and laborious 
beginnings, and require much greater means in man- 
aging them than usually the power of one private 
subject can reach unto, have thought fit hereby to 
advise you to desist from further prosecuting your 
designs that way, and with your first conveniency to 
return back to your native country, where you shall 
be sure to enjoy both the liberty of a subject, and 
such respect from us as your former services and 
late endeavours do so justly deserve." 

The recommendations of princes are usually tan- 
tamount to commands; and it is probable that if 
this letter had reached Baltimore sooner, he would 
have returned directly to England and abandoned 
his plans of colonization. But before it was writ- 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT, 



27 



ten he had already sailed, with a number of his 
colonists, for Virginia, to look at the country and fix 
upon a site for his new colony, in case his request 
for a grant of land was favourably received. The 
charter of Virginia having been annulled upon a 
quo ivarranto by the court of King's Bench in 1623, 
the king had been revested in all his rights, and 
could grant territorial jurisdiction and the posses- 
sion of all the soil not under private ownership to 
whom he pleased. 

Baltimore arrived at Jamestown in October, 1629, 
The Virginians either suspected or had information 
of his plans, and he was but coldly received by the 
authorities. Governor Yeardley had died, and the 
council had appointed one John Pott as provisional 
governor until Sir John Harvey, the royal governor, 
should arrive. The authorities at Jamestown deter- 
mined to be rid of Baltimore ; for though they un- 
derstood that he incHned rather to settle further to 
the southward, they noticed with alarm that he ap- 
peared "well affected" to Jamestown; and it was, 
of course, within the bounds of possibility, as well 
as of law, that the king might give him a charter for 
the whole of Virginia. A device to force him away 
was easily found. Knowing his religious faith, they 
tendered him the oath of supremacy, which as a 
conscientious Catholic he could not take, though he 
offered to take a modified form of it. To this they 
would not agree ; so he determined to depart. It 
is probable that even had his reception been more 
friendly, he would not have made any prolonged 



28 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

stay. The plan he had at heart was to found an 
entirely new colony which should be a refuge for 
those of his own faith, which he should build up 
from the foundations, and where his quasi-royal rule 
would serve to shelter the Catholics from the opera- 
tions of the penal statutes and the persecutions of 
fanaticism. No such colony could have been made 
out of or planted among a people so unmanagea- 
ble and so fiercely Protestant as the Virginians of 
that day. 

Calvert seems to have met with some rude treat- 
ment while at Jamestown, as it is on record that one 
Thomas Tindall was pilloried " for giving my Lord 
Baltimore the lie and threatening to knock him 
down." It is true that this punishment was not in- 
flicted until the next year, after Governor Harvey 
had arrived; but we can hardly suppose that this 
ruffianism was countenanced by the better class, or 
Baltimore would not have left his wife and family in 
Jamestown on his departure. His doing so seems 
to indicate that he expected soon to return. He 
discovered, however, after his arrival in England, 
that many hindrances and delays were to be looked 
for ; so Lady Baltimore and his family followed him 
later in the Sainte Claude, and had a narrow escape, 
the ship being wrecked off the English coast, and 
though all on board escaped with their lives, Balti- 
more's goods were lost. 

We can easily understand why Baltimore should 
at this time have been sad at heart and capable of 
sympathizing with grief. We find him, on October 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 29 

nth, 1630, writing from London the following touch- 
ing letter of condolence to Wentworth on the death 
of his wife : 

" Were not my occasions such as necessarily keep 
me here at the time, I would not send letters but 
fly to you myself with all the speed I could to ex- 
press my own grief, and to take part of yours, which 
I know is exceeding great, for the loss of so noble 
a lady, so virtuous and so loving a wife. There are 
few, perhaps, can judge of it better than I, who have 
been a long time myself a man of sorrows. But all 
things, my lord, in this world pass away; statutimi 
est; wife, children, honour, v/ealth, friends, and what 
else is dear to flesh and blood. They are but lent 
us till God please to call for them back again, that 
we may not esteem anything our own, or set our 
hearts upon anything but Him alone, who only re- 
mains forever. I beseech His almighty goodness to 
grant that your Lordship may, for His sake, bear 
this great cross with meekness and patience, whose 
only Son, our dear Lord and Saviour, bore a greater 
for you; and to consider that these humihations, 
though they be very bitter, yet are they Sovereign 
medicines ministered unto us by our heavenly Phy- 
sician, to cure the sicknesses of our souls." 

Baltimore still adhered to his purpose of return- 
ing to the New World, notwithstanding the king's re- 
luctance to let him go, and implied promise to in- 
demnify him for his losses and disappointments by 
an increase of royal favour. He had long set his 
heart upon his plans of colonization; and it may 



30 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



be that he thought that his health, much, and in- 
deed fatally, broken, might be restored in the mild 
Virginian climate. At length the king yielded to 
his wishes and granted him a tract of land between 
the James and Passamagnus (Chowan) rivers. But 
as this grant was strongly opposed by some of the 
dissolved Virginia company, on the pretext that 
they were themselves about to settle colonists on 
that region for the purpose of raising sugar, Balti- 
more asked the king to reconsider the matter. The 
referees, taking also into consideration the fact that 
the Dutch were establishing themselves between 
Virginia and the New England settlements, and that 
it would be advisable to push English colonization 
further northward, recommended a grant of lands 
lying considerably to the north of the Virginia col- 
ony. Baltimore therefore surrendered his grant of 
Carolana, as it was called, and received in its stead 
a grant of land on both sides of the Chesapeake Bay, 
including the whole eastern peninsula, and running 
down to the Potomac on the western side, no part 
of which territory, as was then thought, had been 
granted by Virginia. 

All these arrangements and re-arrangements took 
time, and part of this time he employed in writing 
a pamphlet dissuading the king from taking up arms 
in the cause of his sister's husband, the dispossessed 
Elector Palatine and discrowned King of Bohemia, 
and thus involving England in the miseries of the 
Thirty Years' War. The pamphlet was probably 
meant for Charles's eye only, as it was not published 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



31 



until long after Baltimore's death. Charles imitated 
his father's policy, and while he raised six thousand 
men for Gustavus Adolphus, this was done in the 
name of the Marquis of Hamilton, that the neutrality 
of England might be preserved. 

Baltimore's health had long been declining, and 
on April 15th, 1632, before his patent for Maryland 
had passed the great seal, he died. By his will he 
left his landed estates, and personalty appraised at 
;^9,7oo, to his eldest son Cecilius, whom'he also 
appointed his executor, and legacies of money to 
his other children, more distant kindred, and ser- 
vants. He desires his " noble and ancient friends," 
Wentworth and Cottington, to supervise the admin- 
istration, and commends his family to their friendly 
offices. 

Avalon, after Baltimore's departure, was still kept 
up as a fishing station, managed by governors ap- 
pointed by the proprietary. In 1637, on the alleged 
ground that the Calverts had abandoned Avalon and 
forfeited the charter, the island was granted to the 
marquis of Hamilton, the earls of Pembroke and 
Holland, and Sir David Kirke. Kirke went out the 
next year and took possession, turning out Balti- 
more's governor and seizing his house, boats, and 
other private property. Cecilius protested, offering 
evidence that the station had been kept up and 
properly managed ; but all to no purpose. During 
the Protectorate Kirke was shrewd enough to enlist 
Cromwell on his side by granting part of the island 
to Claypoole, the Protector's son-in-law. -In 1660 



32 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 



Baltimore succeeded in having the whole matter re^ 
ferred to the Chief Justice and other referees, who 
pronounced the grant to Hamilton void ; upon which 
the king ordered the re-delivery of Avalon to the 
proprietary. 

This order was resisted, or at least not obeyed, 
for some time ; but Kirke going to England, Balti- 
more brought suit against him for detention of his 
property, and obtained a judgment, which Kirke 
being unable to satisfy, he was thrown into prison, 
where it is said he died. In 1663 Avalon was de- 
livered to Swanley, Baltimore's governor, and seems 
to have prospered fairly well. 

From this time on the history of Avalon is almost 
a blank. The subsequent proprietaries seem to 
have neglected it altogether; and in 1754 it was de- 
cided that the proprietary rights had lapsed from 
long disuse, the charter was annulled, and Avalon 
as a distinct province ceased to exist, though the 
name is still retained. 

Though the colony which he founded was almost 
a failure, and he did not live to see the beginnings 
of that colony which succeeded, George Calvert has 
a right to be ranked among the makers of America. 
It is true, his first experiment at Avalon was little 
more than a commercial venture ; but he soon saw 
the advantages of placing it on a firmer footing, and 
making it a colony instead of a mere fishing station. 
But he had seen the disasters that had befallen the 
commercial colonies owned and managed for the 
profit of. a company, and administered by selfish, 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 33 

unsettled, and divided policy. Calvert first intro- 
duced in America the palatinate form of government, 
in which powers virtually royal are vested in a single 
person. But in Calvert's palatinate of Avalon the 
laws were to be made with the advice and consent 
of the freemen, duly assembled for that purpose. 
In a word, it was a miniature England, constitution- 
ally governed by those whose interests were centred 
in it, and having a single administrative head. Ex- 
ternal causes, as we have seen, brought his experi- 
ment to an untimely end ; but the charter of Ava- 
lon was the model for that of the first English colony 
that was successful from the start. 

A fine portrait of Calvert, by Mytens, court painter 
to James I., is in the possession of the present Earl 
of Verulam. The face is highly refined and of the 
long oval characteristic of so many faces of the reigns 
of Elizabeth and James. The high-arched brows 
and melancholy dark eyes seem to belong to a man 
who had suffered much and learned to bear suffer- 
ing with patience. A small dark mustache and 
pointed Vandyke beard give the features some re- 
semblance to the well-known portraits of Charles 
I. The dress is a doublet of rich dark stuff, ap- 
parently satin, -turned over with lace at the wrists ; 
and a rabato, or falling ruff of lace, surrounds the 
neck.' 

The church of St. Dunstan, Fleet Street, London, 



T- A fine copy of this portrait was presented to the State of Maryland by 
the late John W. Garrett, Esq., and is now at the state-house at Annapolis. 



34 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

where Baltimore was buried, has since been destroyed 
by fire, and no statue, bust, or monument, on either 
side of the Atlantic, perpetuates the memory of 
George Calvert. 



GEORGE AND "CECILIUS CALVERT. 35 



CHAPTER HI. 

The grant of Maryland — so named in honour of 
the queen, Henrietta Maria — was made out in the 
name of CeciUus, Baltimore's eldest son and heir to 
the title. As at first drawn, it included the whole 
peninsula east of the Chesapeake Bay; but it hav- 
ing been shown that some settlements had been 
made by Virginians in the southern part of this pen- 
insula (now the Eastern Shore of Virginia), the south- 
ern boundary of Maryland was drawn eastward from 
the mouth of the Potomac. With this alteration, 
the charter was confirmed on June 20th, 1632. 

The boundaries of the new province were as fol- 
lows: On the north, the fortieth parallel of north 
latitude (the southern boundary of New England) ; 
on the west, a meridian line from this parallel to 
the first or most distant fountain of the Potomac, 
and thence southeast, by the right bank of that 
river, to the Chesapeake Bay at a specified point ; 
thence eastwardly across the bay and peninsula to 
the Atlantic, and thence northwardly by the Dela- 
ware Bay and river to the fortieth parallel. 

This territory was held, not, like Avalon, /// capife, 
by knight's service, but in free and common socage, 
(in other words, at a fixed rental in lieu of all ser- 
vices), the feoffee rendering therefor two Indian 
arrows at the castle of Windsor, yearly, on Tuesday 



36 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVE Rl\ 

in Easter week, and the fifth part of all gold and 
silver found. 

This charter, which has been said to be the most 
ample in its privileges of any ever granted by a Brit- 
ish sovereign, erected Maryland into a palatinate, or 
quasi-royal government. The palatinates on the 
continent were hereditary principalities of the em- 
pire, and the palatines were sovereign princes. In 
England there were three palatinates, the counties 
of Chester and Durham and the duchy of Lancas- 
ter; and the palatines of these, namely, the earl of 
Chester, the bishop of Durham, and the duke of 
Lancaster, enjoyed, according to the authorities, "a 
royal power in all things." The earldom of Ches- 
ter was united to the crown by Henry HI. and the 
duchy of Lancaster by Henry VII., but the palati- 
nate of Durham remained with the bishop of that 
see ; and accordingly the rights and privileges of the 
bishop of Durham are taken in the charter as the 
measure of those of the proprietary of Maryland. 

It invested the proprietary and his lineal descend- 
ants forever with the perpetual and hereditary owner- 
ship of the soil and the waters; empowered him to 
make peace or war, to suppress insurrection or sedi- 
tion, to call out, arm, and command the militia, and 
to declare martial law ; to levy rents, taxes, dues, 
and tolls ; to confer titles and dignities ; to erect 
towns, boroughs, and cities; to erect and found 
churches and cause them to be consecrated ; ' to 

I The charter in allowing him to erect churches, chapels, and oratories, 
says timt he may cause them to be consecrated according to the ecclesias- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 37 

make laws, public or private, with the advice and 
consent of the freemen, and necessary ordinances, 
not affecting life, limb, or property, without that 
consent; to establish courts of justice and appoint 
judges, magistrates, and other civil officers, and to 
execute the laws, even to the extent of taking life. 
Writs ran in his name ; there was no appeal from 
his courts ; nor did the laws enacted in his assembly 
require any confirmation from king or Parliament. 
The colonists retained all the privileges, as well as 
the name, of British subjects; they retained the 
right to hold, inherit, or otherwise acquire land in 
England ; they were free to trade to England or to 
friendly foreign ports ; they participated in making 
the laws, and they, with their lands and goods, were 
expressly exempted from taxation by the crown ; so 
that the right in vindication of which the colonies 
afterward revolted from Great Britain was expressly 
secured to Maryland by the very words of her char- 
ter. And finally it was added that if at any future 
time any doubt should arise as to the true meaning 
of any point or article of this charter, that interpre- 
tation should be adopted which was most favourable 
to the proprietary. 

This charter, as Gardiner has well remarked, pro- 
vided for a constitutional government according to 
the ideas of James and of Charles. There was to 
be a hereditary feudal monarchy, surrounded by a 

tical laws of England ; but it does not bind him to do so, nor prohibit him 
from having them consecrated under other laws. In fact one of the first 
things done was to consecrate a Roman Catholic chapeL 



^8 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

body of nobility deriving its rank, dignities, and 
privileges from the prince as the fountain of honour. 
The law-making power was vested in the prince, 
not in the people, who could only advise and assent 
or dissent. The proprietary lacked no single royal 
power: his title ran " CeciHus Absolute Lord of 
Maryland and Avalon," and the only difference be- 
tween him and an independent sovereign was the 
acknowledgment of fealty typified by the tender of 
the arrows and the reservation of the fifths of gold 
and silver. 

But almost from the beginning, as will be seen, 
these ideas of high prerogative were modified. 
No nobility was founded; and Baltimore, almost 
as soon as the question arose, conceded the ini- 
tiative in legislation to the representatives of the 
people. 

The privileges of this charter will not appear so 
surprising if we remember the political ideas of the 
time. The explorers who went out to discover or 
conquer new lands did so as servants of the king, 
and the lands so taken possession of were regarded 
as the property of the crown. The English colonies 
were not under the control of Parliament, but were 
ruled altogether by the king with the advice of his 
council, and nothing in their constitution interfered 
with or limited the royal prerogative. This state 
of affairs, so congenial to the views of James, was no 
doubt one reason why he was so favourably disposed 
to colonization. It was this position of the colonies 
also that made necessary the express provision in 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



39 



the charter that the colonists should still be consid- 
ered British subjects. 

The charter having finally passed the great seal, 
Lord Baltimore set about colonizing his new terri- 
tory. He at first proposed to accompany his colo- 
nists ; but as the undertaking had bitter and implaca- 
ble enemies in England who sought every occasion 
to hinder or frustrate it, he concluded to remain be- 
hind for the first year, sending in his stead his 
brothers Leonard and George, of whom Leonard 
was appointed his governor and deputy. 

The prospects for civil and religious liberty in 
England were then at their gloomiest. Charles had 
dissolved Parliament in 1629, and was now ruling 
without a ParUament. It was doubtful whether a 
body of free representatives would ever meet again ; 
and, as matter of fact, this state of things continued 
for eleven years. Absolutism in church and state 
reigned supreme. The heavy hand of the Star 
Chamber fell without mercy on those who, like Eliot 
and Leighton, dared to raise a word against arbitrary 
seizure of their goods or constraint of their con- 
sciences. Puritan and Catholic were alike under 
the ban of proscription, and multitudes of the 
former sought a refuge in New England. But for 
the latter, suffering under still more cruel oppres- 
sion, there was no such asylum ; and this Baltimore 
proposed to provide. There is no reason to suppose 
that he intended to found a Catholic colony like the 
Non-conformist colonies to the north; such a quix- 
otic scheme would have been ruinous to his enter- 



40 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



prise and himself. What he did propose to do will 
be seen later. 

For the transportation of his colonists he made 
ready two vessels, the Ark of about three hun- 
dred tons, and a pinnace, the Dove, of about fifty- 
tons, both which had been his father's. Having taken 
on board a part — possibly the Protestant part — of 
their passengers, the vessels sailed from Gravesend, 
but the attorney-general having received informa- 
tion that the passengers had gone without taking the 
oath of allegiance required of all British subjects 
leaving the kingdom, a hurried order was despatched 
to Admiral Pennington, then lying in the Downs, to 
give chase and bring them back. This was done: 
the Ark and Dove were brought back to Gravesend, 
where Watkins, the London " searcher," went on 
board and administered the oath to all he found, 
amounting to one hundred and twenty-eight persons. 
This formality over, they were allowed to depart in 
peace, and dropped down to the Isle of Wight on or 
about the end of October. 

Baltimore gives an account of all these vexations 
in a letter to Wentworth (now earl of Strafford) of 
January loth, 1633-34: "After many difficulties 
.since your Lordship's departure from hence, in the 
proceedings of my plantation, wherein I felt your 
Lordship's absence, I have at last sent away my 
ships, and have deferred my own going till another 
time. And indeed, my Lord, it was not one of the 
least reasons of my stay at this time, the great de- 
sire I had to wait upon your Lordshii) in that king- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 41 

dom [Ireland] which, I must confess, my own affec- 
tion importuned me to when you went from hence ; 
and I should have done it had I been at liberty. 
But, as I said, my ships are gone, after having been 
many ways troubled by my adversaries, after that 
they had endeavoured to overthrow my business at 
the Council board, after they had informed, by sev- 
eral means, some of the Lords of the Council that 
I intended to carry over nuns into Spain and sol- 
diers to serve that king (which I believe your Lord- 
ship will laugh at as they did), after they had gotten 
Mr. Attorney-General to make an information in 
the Star Chamber that my ships were departed from 
Gravesend without any cockets from the custom- 
house, and in contempt of all authority, my people 
abusing the king's officers and refusing to take the 
oath of allegiance. Whereupon their lordships sent 
present order to several captains of the king's ships 
who lay in the Downs to search for my ships in the 
river, and to follow them into the narrow seas if they 
were gone out; and to bring them back to Graves- 
end, which they did; and all this done before I 
knew anything of it, but imagined all the while that 
my ships were well advanced on the voyage. But 
not to trouble your Lordship with too many cir- 
cumstances, I, as soon as I had notice of it, made it 
plainly appear unto their lordships that Mr. Attor- 
ney was abused and misinformed, and that there 
was not any just cause of complaint in any of the 
former accusations, and that every one of them was 
most notoriously and maliciously false ; whereupon 



42 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



they were pleased to restore my ships to their former 
hberty. 

"After they had Hkewise corrupted and seduced 
my mariners, and defamed the business all they 
could by their scandalous reports to discourage men 
from it, and used all the means they could, both 
publicly and privately, to overthrow it, I have, as I 
said, at last, by the help of some of your Lordship's 
good friends and mine, overcome these difficulties 
and sent a hopeful colony into Maryland, with a 
fair and probable expectation of good success, how- 
ever, without danger of any great prejudice unto 
myself, in respect that others are joined with me in 
the adventure. There are two of my brothers gone, 
with very near twenty other gentlemen of very good 
fashion, and three hundred labouring men well pro- 
vided in all things." 

Chief among the adversaries of whom Baltimore 
speaks, were the members of the old dissolved Vir- 
ginia company and their friends, who were leaving 
no stone unturned to have their patent renewed, and, 
if possible, extended to its former boundaries. Their 
hostility was bitter, indefatigable, and unscrupulous. 
They had attacked the Maryland charter before its 
confirmation, and wrought incessantly to have it 
annulled after; they attacked Baltimore himself, 
misrepresented his motives and falsified his actions ; 
they defamed his government and never wearied of 
bringing false charges against his officers and his 
colony. It was a hot-bed of Papists and seminary 
of Jesuits ; it was a stronghold of royalists and malig- 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 43 

nants ; it was an asylum for schismatics and Puritans, 
as happened to serve their turn. All who had a 
grudge against Maryland, its justice, its authorities, 
or its people, were welcomed; and their charges, 
however false or monstrous, backed up before the 
Privy Council or the Board of Trade and Planta- 
tions. Dying, they bequeathed their vindictiveness 
to their successors and their calumnies to posterity; 
and the hereditary animosity was kept up for a cen- 
tury and a half, if indeed it is yet entirely extin- 
guished. Fortunately for Baltimore, the greater part 
of the Virginian people were bitterly opposed to a 
restoration of the old company, and doubtless the 
Privy Council was aware of their strong aversion to 
the re-establishment of a government that had been 
so disastrous. 

The first formal attack upon the charter was made 
in July, 1633, and came in the form of a memorial 
from the Virginia planters to the Lords of Foreign 
Plantations (a committee which had charge of colo- 
nial affairs), accompanied with a paper of " consid- 
erations." In these the ground is taken that whereas 
the land granted was designated as " unsettled," in 
reality a settlement had been made within it by per- 
sons from Virginia. The reference is to Claiborne's 
trading-station on Kent Island, an account of which 
will be given later. 

They further object that the palatinate powers 
granted the proprietary are too extensive, and dan- 
gerous to the liberties of the people; while, with 
some inconsistency, they urge that the privileges 



44 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

and franchises granted to the Marylanders are so 
great that they will attract settlers from other colo- 
nies, and so dispeople them. They also cite an order 
in council to the effect that the revocation of the 
Virginia charter was not intended to impair any 
planter's private right to his lands. 

What the answers were is not on record ; but they 
are obvious. The privileges of the charter were 
really liberties of the people. As no laws could be 
imposed upon the settlers but by their own assent, 
they could protect themselves against any invasion 
of their Hberties. As settlement and residence in 
the province were voluntary, no one need go there 
unless he liked the government, and if on trial he 
did not like it, he could depart. The objection that 
the population of Virginia would be attracted to 
Maryland answered itself. If the settlers in Mary-_ 
land would be at a disadvantage, Virginians would 
not be attracted; while if Maryland held out ad- 
vantages, why should Virginians be debarred from 
sharing them? As for the last objection, the answer 
was simple : there were no planters in Maryland to 
be robbed. 

The lords, after hearing both sides, confirmed the 
charter, and left the other side to their remedy at 
law if any wrong should be done them ; and the king 
wrote to the governor and council of Virginia, com- 
manding them to keep a good correspondence with 
Maryland, and to help the new colony, so far as 
might be in their power. 

This matter having been settled, about the end 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 45 

Of October, as has been said, the Ark and Dove 
dropped down to the Isle of Wight. Here they took 
on board two Jesuit priests. Fathers Andrew \\ hite 
and John Altham, and a number of other emigrants, 
raisin- the total to about three hundred and twenty 
souls.'' It has been conjectured, with some plausi- 
biUty that those here taken on board were the Ro- 
man CathoUcs; and if this be so, they must have 
considerably outnumbered the Protestants; but this 
is an uncertain inference.^ As a large part of the 
settlers were persons held to service, it seems most 
likely that the planters who embarked at the island 
had their servants and labourers with them, and saw 
them on board. The heads of the expedition were 
Leonard Calvert, the proprietary's brother and gov- 
ernor of the colony, and two Catholic gentlemen, 
Jerome Hawley and Thomas Cornwaleys, commis- 
sioners or coadjutors. George Calvert, a younger 
brother, accompanied them, and died not long after 
in Maryland or Virginia. 

While the ships were still lying in Cowes harbour, 
Baltimore sent down, to his brother a body of in- 
structions for the government of the expedition dur- 
ing the voyage and upon their arrival at their 
destination. The original draft of this paper, in 
Baltimore's own hand, and withjiis^erasu^^ 

X It is needless to go into the arguments that ^^V^-" ^'^^^"f f.'/.f;, 
cide the numerical preponderance of Protestants or Cathohcs m the fi s 
immigration. A careful weighing of all the evidence leads to the conclu 
Z Sat the settlers proper-those who took up '-^--^^^^^l^" 
Catholics, while the majority of the labouring men, and of the whole colony, 
were Protestants. 



46 GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 

interlineations, has recently been discovered in a 
rather singular manner, and is now in the possession 
of the Maryland Historical Society. As it has never 
been seen by any previous historian or biographer, 
and indeed its very existence has been unknown, 
we may be pardoned for reproducing here, at length 
and literally, the most ancient original Maryland 
document extant. 

" Instructions 13 Novem. 1633 directed by the 
Right Hono''^'^ Cecilius Lo : Baltimore and Lord of the 
Provinces of Mary Land and Avalon unto his well 
beloved Brother Leo: Calvert Esq*" his Lop^ Dep- 
uty Governor of his province of Mary Land and 
unto Jerom Hawley and Thomas Cornwaleys Esq" 
his LoPP"* Comissioners for the government of the 
said Province. 

" I. Inpri: His Lo^p requires his said Governor 
and Commissioners th* in their voyage to Mary Land 
they be very carefull to preserve unity and peace 
amongst all the passengers on Shipp-board, and that 
they suffer no scandall nor offence to be given to 
any of the Protestants, whereby any just Complaint 
may heereafter be made by them, in Virginea or in 
England, and that for that end they Cause all Acts 
of Romane Catholique Religion to be done as pri- 
vately as may be, and that they instruct all the Ro- 
mane Catholiques to be silent upon all occasions of 
discourse concerning matters of Religion ; and that 
the said Governor and Comissioners treate the Pro- 
testants w*'^ as much mildness and favor as Justice 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 47 

will permitt. And this to be observed at Land as 
well as at Sea. 

" 2. That while they are aboard, they do theyre best 
endeavors by such instruments as they shall find 
fittest for it amongst the seamen and passengers, to 
discover what any of them do know concerning the 
private plotts of his Lo^'^'* adversaries in England who 
endeavored to overthrow his voyage : to learne, if 
they cann, the names of all such, their speeches, 
where and when they spoke them, and to whom; 
The places, if they had any, of their consultations, 
the Instruments they used, and the like ; to gather 
what proofes they cann of them, and to sett them 
downe particulerly and cleerely in writing w*'' all the 
Circumstances; together w*'^ their opinions of the 
truth and validity of them according to the condi- 
tion of the persons from whom they had the infor-. 
mation ; And to gett if they can every such informer 
to sett his hand to his Informacon. And if they find 
it necessary and that they have any good probable 
ground to discover the truth better, or that they find 
some unwilling to reveale that w-'^' (by some speeches 
at randome that have fallen from them) they have 
reason to suspect they do know concerning that 
buisness; that at their arrivall in Mary Land they 
cause every such person to answer upon oath to such 
questions as they shall thinke fitt to propose unto 
them; And by some trusty messenger in the next 
shipps that retume for England to send his Lo^p in 
writing all such Intelligences taken either by depo- 
sition or otherwise. 



48 GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 

"3. That as soone as it shall please god they shall 
arrive upon the coast of Virginea, they be not per- 
swaded by the master or any other of the shipp in 
any case, or for any respect whatsoever to goe to 
James Towne, or to come w^' in the comand of the 
fort at Poynt Comfort ; unless they should be forct 
unto it by some extremity of weather (w^^' god for- 
bidd) for the presevation of their lives and goodes, 
and that they find it altogether impossible otherwise 
to preserve themselves; But that they come to an 
anchor somewhere about Accomacke, so that it be 
not under the comand of any fort; and to send 
ashoare there to inquire if they cann find any to take 
w^'' them that cann give them some good informa- 
tione of the Bay of Chesapeacke and Pattawomeck 
River, and that may give them some light of a fitt 
place in his Lqpp^ Countrey to sett downe on; 
whe-rein their cheife care must be to make choice of 
a place first that is probable to be healthfull and 
fruitfull, next that it may be easily fortified, and 
thirdly that it may be convenient for trade both w^^ 
the English and Savages. 

" 4. That by the first oportunity after theyr arrivall 
in Mary Land they cause a messenger to be dispatcht 
away to James Town, such a one as is conformable 
to the Church of England, and as they may, accord- 
ing to the best of their judgments trust; and he to 
carry his ma'^^'^ letter to S^" John Harvie the Gov- 
ernor and to the rest of the Councell there, as like- 
wise his Loi^P^ letter to S' Jo: Harvie, and to give 
him notice of their arrivall: And to have in charge, 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 49 

upon the delivery of the Said letters to behave him- 
self w^'' much respect unto the Governor, and to tell 
him th^ his Lo'^'' had an intention to have come 
himself in person this yeare into those parts, as he 
may perceive by his ma^^<^' letter to him, but finding 
that the setHng of that buisness of his Plantation 
and some other occasions required his presence in 
England for some time longer than he expected, he 
hath deferred his own coming till the next yeare, 
when he will not faile, by the grace of god, to be 
there; and to lett him understand how much his 
LoPP desires to hold a good correspondency w^^ him 
and that Plantation of Virginea, w^'^ he wilbe ready 
to shew upon all occasions, and to assure him by 
the best words he cann, of his Lqpp' particular affec- 
tion to his person, in respect of the many reports he 
hath heard of his worth, and of the ancient acquaint- 
ance and freindshipp w''^' he hath understood was be- 
tween his LoPP" father and him, as likewise for those 
kind respects he hath shewne unto his Lqpp by his 
letters since he understoode of his Lqpp' intention to 
be his neighbor in thoe parts : And to present him 
w^^ a Butt of sacke from his Lopp w'^' his Lqpp hath 
given directions for to be sent unto him. 

" 5. That they write a letter to Cap : Clayborne 
as soone as conveniently other more necessary occa- 
sions will give them leave after their arrivall in the 
Countrey, to give him notice of their Arrivall and of 
the Authority and charge comitted to them by his 
LoPP and to send the said letter together with his 
Lqpp^ to him by some trusty messenger that is like- 
4 



50 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

wise conformable unto the Church of England, w^'' 
a message also from them to him, if it be not inserted 
in their letter, w'^'^' is better, to invite him kindly to 
come unto them, and to signify that they have some 
buisness of importance to speake v/^^^ him about from 
his Lo'-P w"^^ concernes his good very much ; And if 
he come unto them, then that they use him courte- 
ously and well, and tell him that his Lo'''^ under- 
standing that he hath settled a plantacon there w^^'in 
the precincts of his LoI'p^ Pattent, wished them to 
lett him know that his Lqpp is willing to give him all 
the encouragement he cann to proceede; And that 
his Lqpp hath had some propositions made unto him 
by certaine m''chants in Londen who pretend to be 
partners w^^ him in that plantation (viz) Mr. Dela- 
barr, Mr. Tompson, Mr. Clobury, Mr. Collins, and 
some others, and that they desired to have a grant 
from his Lo^p of that Hand where he is: But his 
LoPP understanding from some others that there was 
some difference in partnershipp between him and 
them, and his Lopp finding them in their discourse 
to him that they made somewhat slight of Cap: 
Clayborne's interest, doubted least he might preju- 
dice him by making them any grant, his Lopp being 
ignorant of the true state of their buisness and of 
the thing they desired, as hkewise being well assured 
that by Cap: Clayborne his care and industry be- 
sides his charges, that plantation was first begunn 
and so farr advanced, was for these reasons unwilHng 
to condescend unto their desires, and therefore de- 
ferred all treaty w^'^ them till his Lqpp could truly 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 51 

understand from him how matters stand between 
them, and what he would desire of his Lo''i' in it, 
w^^ his Lo'i^ expects from him ; that thereupon his 
LoPP may take it into farther consideration how to 
do justice to every one of them, and to give them 
all reasonable satisfaction; And that they assure 
him in fine that his Lo^p intends not to do him any 
wrong, but to shew him all the love and favor that 
he cann, and that his Lopp gave them drections to 
do so to him in his absence; in confidence that he 
will, like a good subject to his ma"^ conforme him- 
self to his bigness gratious letters pattents granted 
to his LoPP whereof he may see the Duplicate if he 
desire it, together w*^ their Comission from his Lopp. 
If he do refuse to come unto them upon their invi- 
tation, that they lett him alone for the first yeare, till 
upon notice given to his Lopp of his answere and 
behaviour they receive farther directions from his 
LoPP; and that they informe themselves as well as 
they cann of his plantation and what his designes 
are, of what strength, and what Correspondency he 
keepes w^^ Virginea, and to give an Account of 
every particular to his Lopp. 

"6. That when they have made choice of the 
place where they intend to settle themselves, and 
that they have brought their men ashoare w^'' all 
their provisions, they do assemble all the people to- 
gether in a fitt and decent manner and then cause 
his ma*'^^ letters pattents to be publickely read by 
his LoPP^ Secretary, John Bolles, and afterwards his 
LoPP^ Comission to them, and that either the Gov- 



52 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

ernor or one of the Comissioners presently after 
make some short declaration to the people of his 
Lo^P^ intentions, w"^^' he means to pm-sue in this his 
intended plantation, w^^' are first the honor of god 
by endeavoring the conversion of the Savages to 
Christianity, secondly the augmentation of his ma^^*^^ 
Empire and Dominions in those parts of the world 
by reducing them under the subjection of his Crowne, 
and thirdly by the good of such of his Countreymen 
as are willing to adventure their fortunes and them- 
selves in it, by endeavoring all he cann to assist them, 
that they may reape the fruites of their charges and 
labors according to the hopefulness of the thing, w^^ 
as much freedome, comfort, and incouragement as 
they cann desire ; and w"^ all to assure them that 
his Lqpp^ affection and zeale is so greate to the ad- 
vancement of this Plantacon, and consequently of 
their good, that he will imploy all his endeavors in 
it, and that he would not have failed to have come 
himself in person along w^^' them this first yeare, to 
have been partaker w^^ them in the honor of the 
first voyage thither, but that by reasons of some un- 
expected accidents he found it more necessary for 
their good to stay in England some time longer, for 
the better establishment of his and their right, then 
it was fitt that the shipp should stay for him, but 
that by the grace of god he intends w^'^out faile to 
be w*'' them the next year: And that at this time 
they take occasion to minister an oath of Allegeance 
to his ma^'*^ unto all and every one upon the place 
after having first publikely in the presence of the 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



53 



people taken it themselves ; letting them know that 
his Lqpp gave particuler directions to have it one of 
the first thinges that were done, to testify to the 
world that none should enjoy the benefitt of his 
jjj^ties gi-atious Grant unto his Lo^p of that place, but 
such as should give a publique assurance of their 
fidelity and allegeance to his ma*^*^. 

" 7. That they informe themselves what they cann 
of the present state of the old Colony of Virginea, 
both for matter of government and Plantacon; as 
likewise what trades they drive both at home and 
abroade ; who are the cheife and richest men, and 
have the greatest power amongst them; whether 
their clamors against his Lopp^ pattent continue, and 
whether they increase or diminish ; who they are of 
note that shew themselves most in it, and to find 
out as neere as they cann what is the true reason of 
their disgust against it, or whether there be really 
any other reason but what, being well examined, 
proceedes rather from spleene and malice then from 
any other cause ; And informe his Lopp exactly what 
they understand in any of these particulers. 

" 8. That they take all occasions to gaine and 
oblige any of the Councell of Virginea that they 
shall understand incline to have a good correspon- 
dency w"' his LoPP^ plantation, either by permission 
of trade to them, in a reasonable proportion, w*^in 
his Lqpp^ precincts, or any other way they can, so it 
be cleerely understood that it is by the way of 
Courtesy and not of right. 

" 9. That where they intend to settle the Planta- 



54 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



con they first make choice of a fitt place and a 
competent quantity of ground for a fort, wi*'^n w^^\ 
or neere unto it, a convenient house and a church 
or chappel adjacent may be built for the seate of his 
LoPP or his Governor or other Coinissioners for the 
time being in his absence, both w*^'^ his Lo^p would 
have them take care should in the first place be 
erected, in some proportion at least as much as is 
necessary for present use, though not so compleate 
in every part as in fine aftervi^ards they may be ; and 
to send his Lqpp a Piatt of it and of the scituation, 
by the next oportunity, if it be done by that time ; if 
not, or but part of it, nevertheless to send a Piatt of 
what they intend to do in it, that they likewise make 
choise of a fitt place neere unto it, to seate a towne. 
" ID. That they cause all the Planters to build 
their houses in as decent and uniforme a manner as 
their abilities and the place will afford, and neere 
adjoyning one to an other, and for that purpose to 
cause streetes to be marked out where they intend to 
place the towne, and to oblige every man to buyld 
one by an other according to that rule, and that 
they cause divisions of Land to be made adjoyning 
on the back sides of their houses, and to be assigned 
unto them for gardens and such uses according to 
the proportion of every ones building and adventure, 
and as the conveniency of the place will afford, w'^^ 
his LoPP referreth to their discretion, but is desirous 
to have a particuler account from them what they 
do in it, that his Lopp may be satisfied that every 
man hath justice done unto him. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



55 



"ii. That as soone as conveniently they cann, 
they cause his Lqpp* Surveyor, Robert Simpson, to 
survay out such a proportion of Land, both in and 
about the intended towne, as likewise w*^in the 
Countrey adjoyning, as wilbe necessary to be assigned 
to the present adventurers, and that they assigne every 
adventurer his proportion of Land both in and about 
the intended towne, as alsoe w^^in the Countrey 
adjoyning, according to the proportion of his adven- 
ture and the conditions of plantacon propounded by 
his LoPP to the first adventurers, w'^^' his Lo^p in 
convenient time will confirme unto them by Pattent. 
And herein his Lopp wills his said Governor and 
Comissioners to take care that in each of the afore- 
said places, that is to say in and about the first in- 
tended Towne, and in the Countrey adjacent they 
cause in the first and most convenient places a pro- 
portion of Land to be sett out for his Lopp^ owne 
proper use and inheritance according to the number 
of men he sends this first yeare upon his owne ac- 
count ; and as he alloweth unto the adventurers, be- 
fore any other be assigned his part, w^^ w^"^ (al- 
though his LoPP might very well make a difference 
of proportion between himself and the adventurers) 
he will, in this first Colony, content himself, for the 
better encouragement and accomodation of the first 
adventurers, anto whom his Lqpp conceives himself 
more bound in honor, and is therefore desirous to 
give more satisfaction in every thing than he intends 
to do unto any that shall come hereafter. That they 
cause his Lopp' survayor likewise to drawe an exact 



56 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

mapp of as much of the Countrey as they shall dis- 
cover, together w*^ the soundings of the rivers and 
Baye, and to send it to his Lo^p. 

" 12. That they cause all the planters to imploy 
their Servants in planting of sufficient quantity of 
corne and other provision of victuall, and that they 
do not suffer them to plant any other coniodity 
whatsoever before that be done in a sufficient pro- 
portion ; which they are to observe yearely. 

" 13. That they cause all sorts of men in the plan- 
tation to be mustered and trained in military disci- 
pline, and that there be days appointed for that 
purpose, either weekely or monthly, according to 
the conveniency of other occasions, w*^^' are duly to 
be observed ; and that they cause constant watch 
and ward to be kept in places necessary. 

" 14. That they informe themselves whether there 
be any convenient place w*''in his Lqpp^ precincts 
for the making of Salt; whether there be proper 
earth for the making of saltpeeter, and if there be, 
in what quantity; whether there be probability of 
Iron oare, or any other mines ; and that they be 
carefull to find out what other comodities may prob- 
ably be made ; and that they give his Lqpp notice, 
together w^^^ their opinions of them. 

"15. That, In fine, they bee very carefull to do 
justice to every man w^""out partiality, and that they 
avoid any occasion of difference w*^' those of Vir- 
ginea, and to have as little to do w*'' them as they 
cann this first yeare ; that they connive and suffer 
little injuryes from them rather then to engage them- 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 



57 



selves in a publique quarrel w"^ them, w*^'^ may dis- 
turbe the buisness much in England in the Infancy 
of it. And that they give unto his Lo'^p an exact 
account by their letters from time to time of their 
proceedings both in these instructions from Article 
to Article, and in any other accident that shall 
happen worthy his Lopp^ notice, that thereupon his 
Lo^p may give them farther instructions what to 
doe ; and that by every conveyance by w'^^ they send 
any letters, as his Lo^p would not have them to 
omitt any, they send likewise a Duplicate of the 
letters w'"^ they writt by the last conveyance before 
that, least they should have failed and not be come 
to his LoPP^ hands." 

In this interesting document we see the principles 
of Baltimore's policy, and the germs of the poHty of 
Maryland. Religious toleration, '^ unity and peace " 
between members of different faiths, began on the 
Ark and Dove. Whether we attribute it to wise 
policy, to the cogency of circumstances (of which 
something will be said later), or to a hberal and tol- 
erant spirit, in advance of his age, on the part of 
the proprietary, the fact remains the same that equal 
justice and Christian charity to both Catholic and 
Protestant was the key-note of his rule. When his 
government was temporarily overthrown, intolerance 
and persecution began, but ceased so soon as he 
was reinstated in his authority. No one, we think, 
can read these instructions without seeing that they 
proceeded from a wise, just, and generous man. 



58 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



CHAPTER IV. 

On November 2 2d, 1633, the Ark and Dove set 
sail from Cowes for their destination in the New 
World. A journal of the voyage, written in Latin 
and sent by Father White to Father Mucio Vitel- 
leschi, General of the Jesuit order, has been pre- 
served. After escaping the perils of a furious storm, 
they had pleasant sailing until they reached Bar- 
badoes. They touched at several of the West India 
islands, and then steered for Point Comfort, Vir- 
ginia, where they were kindly received. Departing 
thence, they sailed up the Chesapeake and ascended 
the Potomac, where the beauty of the scenery greatly 
impressed Father White. "Never," he says, "have 
I beheld a larger or more beautiful river. The 
Thames seems a mere rivulet in comparison with 
it ; it is not disfigured by any swamps, but has firm 
land on each side. Fine groves of trees appear, 
not choked with bushes and undergrowth, but grow- 
ing at intervals as if planted by hand, so that you 
might easily drive a four-horse carriage through the 
midst of the trees." Some leagues up this river they 
found an estuary which they named St. Clement's 
Bay, and in this bay a small island, covered with 
woods, offering a suitable site for a fort, where they 
disembarked, celebrated mass, and planted a cross 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. en 

with solemn religious rites, in which all the CathoHcs 
joined. Governor Calvert's next step was to establish 
friendly relations with the Indians. Understanding 
that the " Emperor of Pascatoway " had a sort of 
suzerainty over the neighboring tribes, he set out to 
pay a visit to that potentate, who Hved at Pascato- 
way, some seventy miles up the Potomac. Sailing 
up the river, he first came to a town, where a wero- 
wajice, or king, lived. This chief was a child, and 
his uncle, Archihu by name, acted as regent. 
Archihu received them kindly, and at their departure 
begged them to return and live with him. 

Leaving these hospitable savages, Calvert kept up 
the river to Pascatoway, where he found many In- 
dians assembled, and among them an Englishman, 
Henry Fleete, who knew their language and acted 
as interpreter. Through him Calvert invited the 
emperor to a conference, who came on board and 
readily gave the English permission to settle in his 
territories. During this conference the Indians on 
shore grew uneasy for the safety of their prince ; but 
on his showing himself on deck they were satisfied. 
The size of the Dove, though but of fifty tons 
burthen, struck them with amazement that any where 
a tree grew big enough to make so monstrous a 
canoe. In a word, nothing could have been kinder 
than their reception by these harmless people, who 
thenceforth remained the fast friends of the colonists. 
They next sought a place for a permanent settle- 
ment, St. Clement's island being too small for that 
purpose; so by Fleete's advice they returned, and 



6o GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

sailed up a small river, now known as the St. Mary's, 
which empties into the Potomac about twelve miles 
above its mouth. Here they found an Indian town, 
the residence of a cjiief or king named Yoacomico, 
who received Calvert very kindly, entertained him 
over night, giving him his own bed to sleep on, and 
spent the next day in showing him the country. The 
site pleasing Calvert, he purchased it from the king 
and his head men for axes, hoes and cloth, and 
arranged with him that half the town should be given 
up to them at once, and corn for planting ; and when 
the Indians had gathered in their crops, they would 
abandon the other half. They also entered into a 
treaty to live friendly and peaceably together, while 
they were neighbours. 

The Indians were the more willing to relinquish 
their lands from the fact that they were continually 
and cruelly harried by the fierce Susquehannoughs 
and Senecas of the north, who came down the bay 
in fleets of canoes, so that they were even then pre- 
paring to seek safer abodes. Thus the colonists 
found themselves at once in possession of cleared 
fields and temporary habitations. Father White 
remarks: " One of these cabins has fallen to me and 
my associates, in which we are accommodated well 
enough for the time, until larger dwellings are pro- 
vided. You might call this the first chapel of Mary- 
land." 

His account of these gentle Southern Indians is 
interesting. "They are a people of a frank and 
cheerful disposition, and clearly understand any 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 6i 

matter that is stated to them. They have a keen 
sense of taste and smell, and in sight they surpass 
Europeans. They live, for the most part, on a sort 
of pulse which they call ' pone ' and ' omini,' both 
made of Indian corn, to which they sometimes add 
fish, or what they have procured by hunting and 
fowling. They strictly abstain from wine and hot 
drinks [ardent spirits], nor can they be easily 
brought to taste them, except indeed such as the 
Enghsh have infected with their own vices. With 
respect to chastity, I confess that I have never yet 
perceived, in man or woman, any act which even 
savoured of levity ; yet they are with us and in our 
houses every day, and take pleasure in our society. 
They run to us of their own accord, with beaming 
faces, and offer us what they have taken in hunting 
or fishing ; and sometimes they bring us of their 
own food, and oysters boiled or roasted. In sum, 
they have generous natures, and requite any kind- 
ness shown them." 

It is pleasant to remember that the friendly rela- 
tions thus established with these harmless Pascato- 
ways and other southern tribes, were never broken. 
Treaties were made with them- and renewed from 
time to time; and when the colonists made treaties 
of peace with the northern Indians, these " Friend 
Indians," as they came to be called, were always in- 
cluded in the stipulations. Laws were passed for 
their protection. Their choice of kings and "em- 
perors" was submitted to the governor for ratifica- 
tion. Yet, for some unexplained reason, these in- 



62 GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 

offensive people dwindled away. In 1670 they sent 
a deputation to the governor to renew the leagues 
between them, saying pathetically that they cannot 
offer any present worth accepting, for they are now 
reduced to a small number, and all they desire is to 
remain in peace and security under the protection 
of the English, and " that hereafter, when their na- 
tion may be reduced to nothing, they may not be 
scorned and chased out of our protection." To 
which the governor answered, bidding them have no 
fear, for so long as they kept the articles of the 
league of a,mity, "we should not scorn or cast off 
the meanest of them." 

But while the relations of the colonists with the 
Indians were thus friendly, those with their fellow- 
subjects of Virginia were less pleasant. The gov- 
ernor. Sir John Harvey, was their fast friend; but 
his power to befriend them was not equal to his will. 
A bitter opposition to him had arisen in the assem- 
bly, which was to end in his violent and lawless ex- 
pulsion from the colony. The heads of this faction 
were Thomas Matthews and WiUiam Claiborne. 
Both were hostile to Maryland ; but the latter — the 
person to whom Baltimore referred in the fifth arti- 
cle of his instructions — was its unrelenting enemy, 
had been from the first, and was to remain so 
throughout the whole of his long life, 

Claiborne was a younger son of a good English 
family, who had come out to Virginia some years 
before to seek his fortune. He had prospered in 
various ways, had acquired property, and risen to 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 63 

be a member of the council. Having had some ex- 
perience in dealing with the Indians for beaver and 
other skins, he became a partner or an agent of a 
firm of London merchants, and procured from Sir 
William Alexander, Secretary of State for Scotland, 
a license under the Scottish signet to trade with New- 
England and Nova Scotia. He had estabhshed a 
trading-post on Kent Island in the Chesapeake, but 
did not secure any grant of land or attempt to culti- 
vate the soil. The undertaking did not prosper, 
and a quarrel arose between him and his London 
principals, each side casting the blame on the other. 
The Londoners, as we have seen, applied to Balti- 
more for a grant of the island, apparently intending 
to oust Claiborne ; but this he refused, being desir- 
ous, if possible, to make a friend of one who might 
become a valuable ally, or influential member of his 
infant colony. 

Claiborne, however, was not to be conciliated. 
He and his party in Virginia were bent on driving 
Harvey away, and Harvey's well-known friendship 
for the Maryland colony was an excellent lever to 
use. The charge that he was a friend to Papists, 
was enough to excite the foolish populace, always 
easily led by a cry; and Harvey found his authority 
and influence waning day by day. 

According to his instructions, Governor Calvert 
notified Claiborne at once that the post on Kent 
Island was in his brother's dominions, and Claiborne, 
who did not reside on the island but in Virginia, 
rose in his' place in the council and asked what he 



64 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

was to do. They said they saw no reason why the 
island should be given up, but advised him to do 
nothing for the present, and recommended that a 
good understanding should be kept up with the 
Marylanders. Harvey, in addition to his friendly 
inclinations, had received special orders from the 
king commanding him to sujBfer no Virginians to 
molest Baltimore's plantation, but to give it all the 
aid and encouragement in his power; but, as he 
said, he could do but little, with a majority in the 
council thwarting him at every step and determined 
to make his position untenable, who were, moreover, 
the vindictive and implacable enemies of Maryland, 
Mathews and Claiborne above all. 

Governor Calvert, still following his instructions, 
waited a year without taking further steps. But in 
April, 1635, a pinnace commanded by Thomas 
Smith, sailing under Claiborne's orders, put into the 
Patuxent river to buy corn and furs from the Indians, 
and there Smith was arrested for trading in Mary- 
land waters without a license. Smith and his crew 
were let go, but the vessel was detained. 

News of this proceeding brought matters in Vir- 
ginia to a crisis. The faction opposed to Harvey 
stirred up their followers in Jamestown, and the 
people began to collect in angry crowds, threatening 
open mutiny. Harvey had some of the noisiest 
arrested, and called the council together to decide 
what should be done with them. The majority 
showed plainly on what side their sympathies lay. 
Harvey saw that the time had come when the issue 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 65 

must be made directly, not with the mutinous mob, 
but with their secret instigators, and he called upon 
each member to declare at once and openly what 
those men deserved who had gone about to seduce 
the people from their allegiance to the king in the 
person of his representative. This they refused to 
do, and an angry wrangle followed. Harvey, losing 
his temper, clapped one member on the shoulder, 
crying, " I arrest you on suspicion of treason," at 
which Councillor Utie exclaimed, " And we the like 
to you;" and Matthews, the leader of the faction, 
springing up, pinioned the governor and forced him 
into his chair. After matters had quieted down a 
little, the council desired a sight of the governors 
commission and instructions, which being produced, 
the secretary was ordered to take charge of them 
until they had decided what next to do. 

They next released the imprisoned mutineers, in- 
vited all who had grievances to speak them boldly 
out, and notified Harvey that he must go to England 
to answer the charges that would be laid against 
him ; after which, without waiting for his departure, 
they proceeded to elect a new governor. 

Shortly after this, in the same month of April, 
1635, Claiborne, now thinking himself free to carry 
matters with a little higher hand, sent out an armed 
sloop with about thirty men on board, commanded 
by Ratcliffe Warren, with orders to capture any 
Maryland vessels he might find. Hearing of this 
proceeding, Calvert fitted out two pinnaces under 
the command of Captain Thomas Cornwaleys, to 
5 



66 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

cruise in the bay and look out for the enemy. The 
two expeditions met at the mouth of the Pocomoke 
on April 23d, and then and there was fought the first 
naval battle on the inland waters of America. At 
the first exchange of shots Warren and two of his 
men were killed, the Marylanders losing one man, 
and the sloop surrendered. A few days later there 
was another skirmish, in which the same Thomas 
Smith who had been arrested in the Patuxent, com- 
manded a vessel of Claiborne's, and again there was 
bloodshed. 

The port on Kent Island, which depended almost 
entirely upon barter with the Indians for its neces- 
sary supplies of provisions, was now reduced to great 
straits by the loss of its trading vessels ; and at one 
time the people (as they afterward testified on oath) 
were compelled to devour oysters to sustain life. 
The London merchants, Cloberry and company, who 
were growing more and more dissatisfied with the 
management of the station, determined to be rid of 
Claiborne, who seems to have been rather an agent 
than a partner, and sent out their attorney, George 
Evelin, with full powers to take possession in their 
name of the station and all the property of the con- 
cern, both on the island and at Kecoughtan, Vir- 
ginia, where Claiborne lived. Claiborne offered no 
resistance, but surrendered everything to Evelin, and 
sailed for England, where he was involved in a long 
lawsuit with his principals. 

These merchants did not approve Claiborne's 
policy of resistance to Baltimore, and, as we have 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 67 

seen, had applied to the latter for a grant of the 
island before the Ark and Dove had sailed. Evelin, 
their representative, willingly acknowledged the pro- 
prietary's jurisdiction. He called the people on the 
island together, explained the state of affairs to 
them, in which they acquiesced peaceably enough, 
and Governor Calvert confirmed his authority, ap- 
pointing him commander of the island. 

But Claiborne had left behind on the island his 
brother-in-law, John Boteler, or Butler, and Thomas 
Smith, who busied themselves in undermining 
Evelin's authority and stirring up disaffection among 
the people, until a dangerous spirit of revolt was 
aroused. Smith, in particular, began to fortify and 
garrison Palmer's island near the head of the bay. 
Governor Calvert, who had given them repeated 
warnings, now thought it time to put a stop to these 
proceedings, so set sail for Kent Island with an 
armed force, in February, 1638. His letter to his 
brother, giving an account of this expedition (of 
which hitherto nothing more than the fact was known) 
has lately been discovered, and is here given at 
length, from the original: 

" Good Brother : — I have endeavored this last 
winter to brino; the inhabitants of the He of Kent 
willingly to submit themselves to your government, 
and to incourage them thereunto I wrote unto them 
a letter in November, where amongst other motives 
I used to perswade them, I promised to free them 
from all question of any former contempts they had 



68 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

committed against you, so that they would, from 
thence forward, desist from the like and submit 
themselves to the government ; and to shew them 
greater favour, I gave them the choice to name whom 
they would of the inhabitants of the ileand to be 
their commander; but one John Butler, Cleyborn's 
brother in law, and one Tho: Smith, an agent of 
Cleyborne's upon Kent, was of such power amongst 
them that they perswaded them still to continue in 
their former contumacie. Upon notice given me 
here of, I presently appointed Capt. Evelin Com- 
mander of the Ileand, w°^^ formerly I purposely 
omitted because he was had in a generall dislike 
among them; him they contemned and committed 
many insolencies against ; wherefore findeing all faire 
meanes I could use to be in vaine, and that no way 
but compulsion was left, I gathered togeather about 
twenty musketteers of the colony of St. Maries, 
and appointing the command of them to Capt. Corne- 
wallis whom I toocke as my assistant w^^^ me, I sat 
saile from St. Maries towards Kent about the latter 
end of November, intending to apprehend Smith and 
Butler if I could, and by the example of their punish- 
ment to reduce the rest to obedience ; but it being 
then farre in the winter, the windes were so cross 
and the weather so fowle in the baye, that after I 
had remayned a week upon the water, I was forct 
to returne back and deferre that expedition untill 
some fitter tyme. Two months after, in the begin- 
ning of Februarie, I was given to understand that the 
Indians at the head of the bay called the Sasqua- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 69 

hannoughs intended in the spring following to make 
warre upon us at St. Maries, pretending revenge for 
our assisting of our neighbors Indians against them 
two yeares before (w°^^ we never did, though they 
will needs thinck so) and that they were incouraged 
much against us by Thomas Smith, who had trans- 
planted himselfe w^^ other English from the He of 
Kent the last summer to an Ileand at the head of 
the bay fower miles below the falls, called Palmer's 
Ileand, and understanding likewise that they had 
planted and fortified themselves there by directions 
from Capt. Cleybourne w^^^ intent to live there in- 
dependent of you (because they supposed it out of 
the limits of your Province) and that the s*^ Smith, 
and Mr. Botler whom I have formerly mentioned, 
was then preparing to carrie a farther supply from 
Kent, both of men and necessaries to the s'^ Ileand, 
I thought it expedient to stop theire proceedings in 
the beginnings ; and for that purpose having advised 
w^^ the councell about the business, I set forth 
from St. Maries for the He of Kent w^'' thirtie choice 
musketteers, takeing Capt. Cornewalleis and Capt. 
Evelin in my company. To Capt. Cornewalleis I 
appointed the command of those soldiers I carried 
with me, and afterward arriving at the said Ileand, 
I landed w^^ my company a little before sunne rise, 
at the Southermost end thereof where Capt. Cley- 
borne's house is seated, w^^'in a small fort of pal- 
lysadoes ; but findeing the gate towards the sea at 
my coming fast barred in the inside, one of my 
company, beeing acquainted w*'^ the place quickly 



70 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



fownd passage in at an other gate, and commeing 
to the gate w'^'' I was at, opened unto me, so that 
I was arrived and entered the fort w^'' out notice 
taken by any of the Ileand, which I did desire, the 
easiher to apprehend Boteler and Smith, the cheife 
incenduaries of the former seditions and mutinies 
upon the Ileand, before they should be able to make 
head against me; and understanding that Boteler 
and Smith were not then at the fort, but at their 
severall plantations, I sent to all the lodgeings in the 
fort and caused all the persons that were fownd in 
them to be brought unto me, thereby to prevent 
theire giveing untymely notice unto Boteler and 
Smith of my commeing, and takeing them all alongst 
w*^^ me, I marched w^^^ my company from thence 
w*'' what speed I could towards Botcler's dwelling 
called the great thicket, some five miles from the 
fort, and appointed my pirmass to meet me at an- 
other place called Craford, and makeing a stand 
about halfe a mile short of the place, I sent my 
ensigne, one Mr. Clerck (that came once w*'' Mr. 
Copley from England) w^'' tenne musketteires to 
Butler to acquaint him that I was come upon the 
Ileand to settle the government thereof, and com- 
maund his present repaire unto me at Craford, two 
miles distant from thence ; w'^^' the ensigne accord- 
ingly did, and brought Boteler unto me before I 
removed from where he left me ; after I had thus 
l^ossessed myself of him, I sent my Serjeant, one 
Robert Vaughan, w'^' six musketteires to Thomas 
Smith's, who lived at a place called Beaver Neck, 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 71 

right against Boteler, on the other side of a creeck, 
w^'' like commands as I had formerly given for Bote- 
ler, and then marching forward, with your ensigne 
displayed, to Craford, by the tyme I was come 
thither Smith was brought unto me, where having 
both the cheife deHnquents against you, I first 
charged them w^^^ theire crimes, and afterward com- 
mitted them jDrisoners aboard the pinnass I came in, 
and appointed a gard over them ; after I caused a 
proclamation to be made of a generall pardon to all 
other the inhabitants of the ileand excepting Boteler 
and Smith for all former contempts against that 
should w*^'in fower and twenty howers after the pro- 
claiming of the same come in and submit themselves 
to your governement ; whereupon w^'^in the time ap- 
pointed the whole ileand came in and submitted 
themselves. Having received theire submission, I 
exorted them to a faithful continuance of the same, 
and encouraged them thereto by assureing them how 
ready you would be alwayes^ upon theire deserts, to 
condescend to any thing for theire goods. After- 
ward I gave order for the carrieing of Boteler and 
Smith to St. Maries in the pinnass I came in, and 
with them sent most of the soldiers as a gard upon 
them, commaunding them to be delivered into the 
custody of the sheriffe at St. Maries untill my re- 
turne, and my pinnass to returne to the ileand to me ; 
where, till my pinnasses returne, I held a court and 
heard and determined diverse causes between the 
inhabitants. At the end of the s*^ court I assembled 
all the inhabitants to make choise of theire delegates 



72 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

to be present for them at a generall assembly then 
held at St. Maries for the makeing of lawes, w^'' they 
accordingly did; and before my departure from 
them I gave them to understand that every man that 
held or desired to hold any land in the ileand, it 
was necessarie they should take pattents of it under 
the seale of the Province, as holding it of you; w'^^' 
they were all very desireous of, so that some tyme 
this summer I promised to come to the ileand and 
bring Mr. Lewger w^^^ me, to survay and lay out 
theire lands for them, and then to pass grants unto 
them of it, reserving only such rents and services to 
you as the law of the Province should appoint. 

" There is upon the ileand about one hundred and 
twentie men able to beare armes, as neer as I could 
gather; of the women and children I can make no 
estimate. 

"*In conclusion, appointing the command of the 
ileand to three of them, vist : to Mr. Robert Philpot 
as commander, and William Cox and Tho: Allen 
joynt commissioners w^^' him, I departed for St. 
Maries, where, after my arrivall, I called a grand 
inquest upon Smith, who fownd a bill against him 
for pyracie, whereupon he was arraigned before the 
assembly, and by them condemned to suffer death 
and forfeit, as by a particular act for that purpose 
assented unto by the whole howse, and sent unto 
you, you will perceive. I have omitted as yet to 
call Mr. Boteler to his tryall, because I am in hopes, 
by shewing favour unto him, to make him a good 
member ; but I have not as yet released him, though 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 



73 



I have taken him out of the sheriffe's custody into 
my owne howse, where I intend to have him re- 
mayne untill I have made farther experience of his 
disposition ; and if I can win him to a good inclina- 
tion to your service, I shall thinck him fittest to take 
the commaund of the He of Kent; for those others 
w'^^ have now that charge from me are very unable 
for it, nor is there better to be fownd upon the 
ileand ; but least (Boteler demeaning himselfe other- 
wise then well) and that I should finde cause to 
thinck him fitter to be punished then pardoned, 
there should want meanes to give him condigne 
punishment for all his former offences, I desire you 
would send over an act the next yeare w*^ your as- 
sent thereto, to be proposed to an assembly in Mary- 
land, for theire assent, censureing Boteler, as Smith 
was, for pyracie, w'^^ he committed at the head of the 
bay neer Palmer's Ileand, in the yeare 1635, upon 
a pinnasse belonging to St. Maries by takeing a 
great quantitie of trucking commodities from Jhon 
Tomkins and Serjeant Robert Vaughan, who had 
the charge of her, and togeather w^^ the s*^ pinnass 
and goodes, carried the S'^ Tomkins and Vaughan 
prisoners to Kent. 

" Smith has solicited you, I suppose by his letters, 
for his pardon ; but I shall desire you that you would 
leave it to me to do as I shall finde him to deserve ; 
whereby (if it be possible he should be the better 
for it) it will take better effect w*^ him when he shall 
continue at my mercie, under whose eye he is. 

"Palmer's Ileand being already seated and forti- 



74 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

fyed, and a good stock of cattle put upon it, I 
thought not good to Supplant; but understanding 
there were five men inhabiting it, Servants to Capt. 
Cleyborne and formerly under the command of 
Smith, I Sent serjeant Robert Vaughan and two 
others w*^ him from St. Maries to Set downe there, 
and to the s^ Vaughan gave the command of all 
the rest ; and by reason Capt. Cleyborne hath been 
attainted of felony in the last assembly at St. Maries 
by particular act, and sentenced to forfeit all his 
Estate in the Provence, I gave Vaughan authoritie 
to take the servants and other goods and chatties 
belonging to Cleyborne upon the ileand into his 
charge, and to have them forth commeing when they 
shall be demaunded of him, togeather w*^ what profit 
shall be made by the Serjeant's labors. 

" I am informed that upon occasion of discourse 
given before S'" Jhon Harvey, Mr. Kempe, and Mr. 
Hawley, by Mr. Boteler, whether Palmer's He were 
w^^ in the Province of Maryland or no, Mr. Hawley 
did so weackly defend your title that Boteler grew 
more confident of proceeding in planting it for his 
brother Cleyborne, and I have some reason to thinck 
that Mr. Hawley did willingly let your title fall for 
some disigne sake of his owne upon trade w^^^ the 
Sasquahannoughs, w*^'^ he might conceive better 
hopes to advance by it depenice [dependence] on 
Virginia then on Maryland. For when I sat in 
counsell at St. Maries about the expedition I made 
to Kent to stop the proceedings of that designe of 
Boteler and Smith's planting it, he earnestly dis- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 75 

swaded it by suggesting all the reasons he could to 
make your title doubtful to it the Ileand^ and then 
how unlawfull an act it would be to hinder theire 
planting it; and though it was made appeare that 
theire seating there was most dangerous to the colony 
at St. Maries by reason that they had incouraged 
the Indians to set upon us, and might hereafter 
furnish them w^^ gunns to our further harme if we 
should suffer them to proceed, whereas otherwise, 
Boteler and Smith beeing removed, we might hope 
to make a peace w*^ these Indians, yet it seemed 
some designe he had upon their setting downe there 
was so deare unto him that he preferred it before 
the safetie of all, us and his owne family beeing in- 
cluded in the daunger, and would needs have per- 
swaded it to be in Virginia, though the express words 
of your pattent limits the Province to the northward 
where New England ends; but it is apparent that 
the Ileand is w^^in your Province, for the line of 
fortie by Smith's map, by w'^'' the Lords Refferies 
[referees] lade out the bonds [bounds], lyeth right 
over the first falls, and this Ileand is fowre miles to 
the sowtherd below these falls, as I can witnes, for 
I was there the last summer and observed it. 

" I beleeve the faire promises w'^'' he made you in 
England when you procured the preferm* he hath 
in Virginia, how usefull he would prove to your 
colony by it, will never be performed by him, for 
nothing moveth him but his owne ends, and those 
he intendeth wholly to remove from Maryland and 



76 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

place them in Virginia, and intendeth shortly to re- 
move his wife and family thither. 

" I am sorry it was your ill fortmie to be a meanes 
of so much good to him who is so ingratefull for it, 
for he disclaimes that he ever sought your help_, or 
had any from you towards his preferm*, for he 
thincketh you did not so much as know he pretended 
to the place he hath, nor that you knew he had it 
untill a long tyme after it was passed unto him ; 
thus Capt. CornewalHs telleth me he hath heard him 
say, and he is of such greevance unto the Governor 
and Secretarie of Virginia, that they promise to 
themselves nothing but ruine by his draweing all the 
perquisites of theire two places from them, and do 
therefore wonder that you would be the meanes of 
procureing such a place for him. They do both in- 
tend by their letters to solicite your help for the re- 
moveing him, and it were well for both colonies that 
he were ; for he can not have less power then too 
much in that colony, w'^^', (by impoverishing S' John 
Harvey and draweing from him and the Secretarie 
the execution of all the cheife services w^^ the King's 
profhtts and the people's estates hath dependency 
on) he will bring unto himselfe ; so that Maryland, 
wherein it shall have occasion to use Virginia, is 
like shortly to seeck for it onely to him, where there 
is nothing to be hoped for but what is unserviceable 
to his own ends ; and nothing scapeth his designem*^ 
though it be never so much beyond his reach to 
compass. 

" The body of lawes you sent over by Mr. Lewger 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 77 

I endeavoured to have had passed by the assembly at 
Maryland, but could not effect it, there was so many 
things unsuteable to the people's good and no way 
conduceing to your proffitt, that being they could 
not be exempted from others w^^ they wilHngly would 
have passed, they were desireous to suspend thetn 
all. The particular exceptions w^^ were made 
against them Mr. Lewger hath given you an account 
of in his dispatches to you : others have been passed 
in the same assembly and now sent unto you, w'^^ 
I am perswaded will appear unto you to provide 
both for your honour and proffitt as much as those 
you sent us did. 

" The trade w*^ the Indians they wholly exempted 
themselves from and leaft it to you; onely Capt. 
Cornewallis I have promised should not want the 
most I could say unto you to procure leave for him 
that he might rent three twenty pownds shares in 
it yearely so long as he is a member of your colony, 
w^^ I did, as well to decline his hindrance of passing 
the whole to you, as also to give him incouragement 
for the many services he hath done you in the 
colony ; for though it hath been his fortune and myne 
to have had some differences formerly, yet in many 
things I have had his faithfull assistance for your 
service, and in nothing more then in the expedicion 
to Kent this last winter. 

" I would not wish you (now it is in your hands 
to dispose of) to intrest too many sharers in it, for 
that hath been hitherto the distruction both of the 
trade and the traders, for they never agreeing to 



78 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

trade joyntly, did by theire severall trade prevent on 
[one] another's marcket, and by over bidding the 
prise for beaver, dayly spoiled the trade ; whereas if 
it had been in one hand, or in so many as would 
have joyned, it might have made some profit to the 
adventurers ; but in the way it hath been hitherto, 
they that have used it hath reaped nothing but losse ; 
wherefore if you shall thinck good to let me have 
any share in it, I desire you would not interest any 
other besides Capt. Cornewalleis, for there is none 
else in Maryland that knoweth what belongeth to 
the trade, and therefore are not like to joyne in the 
wayes w^^' are most expedient for the good of it. If 
you would let it out to us two for two or three 
yeares, rent free, I am perswaded it would be brought 
to such a state by the way we should bring it in, 
that it would be farre more profittable and certaine 
then ever it was, for hereafter ; or if you thinck good 
to use it all yourselfe, and send over truck for it, I 
shalbe ready to do you the best service I can ; but 
you must cause boates and hands to be procured of 
your owne here and not put yourselfe to hyer them, 
for that will eat you out of all your profitt if not your 
principall; and you must designe to place factories 
as soone as you can on shore in some convenient 
places whereto the trade may be drawne, for the way 
of boating it, though the boates may be a man's 
owne, is very chargeable and uncertain. 

" I have delivered some tobaccoes to Mr. Lewger, 
but whether it be sufficient or too much to ballance 
the accounts I am to passe, I can not yet tell, for 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT 79 

I have not had tyme since his commeing to make 
them up. It is not for any profitt to myselfe that 
I have purposely delayed it (as I hope you will do 
me so much right as to beleeve) but for want of 
leisure from the publike services of the colony, and 
the necessarie loockeing after some meanes of my 
own subsistance, w^'^ is so difficult to compass here, 
as it requireth much tyme and labor. I meane this 
summer to pass all manner of accounts that are 
between you and me unto Mr. Lewger, for I have 
disposed all my other businesses so as I may have 
sufficient leisure to do it in. Mr. Lewger is a very 
serviceable and diligent man in his secretaries place 
in Maryland, and a very faithfull and able assistant 
to me. 

" The cedar you writt for by him I could not pro- 
cure to send this yeare, by reason there is very few 
to be fownd that are useful tymber trees. Two I 
heard of far up in Patuxent river, and two others 
upon Popelyes [Poplar] Hand in the bay nere to 
Kent; and the fraight and other charges for the 
shipping them will be so deer that I made a question 
whether you would thinck fitt to undergo it ; it will 
stand in eight or tenne pownds a tunne fraight for 
England, besides other charges of transporting it to 
shipping from where it is felled ; neither is there 
meanes in Maryland to transport it unless it might 
be split into clapboard, and whether it will not be 
made unserviceable to you by useing it so, I can 
not tell, because I do not know the use you designe 



8o GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

it for. By your next letters I pray informe me what 
you will have done in it. 

" The matts w'^^ you wrot for amounts to such a 
charge to be bought from the Indians that I had 
not sufficient means to purchase it. It is not lesse 
then fortie pownds worth of truck out of England 
will buy 350 yards of matt, besides the charge of 
seecking them in twentie severall Indian towns ; for 
unless they be bespocken there is very few to be 
had but such as are not worth buying to give a freind ; 
and besides for the use you intend them it is neces- 
sarie they should all be of one make, otherwise they 
cannot flower a roome ; and before I shall procure 
so many yards I must send all the Province over; 
but if you desire to have them and will provide truck 
to buy them, upon farther notice from you I will 
bespeack them, to have them all in as few places as 
I can, to avoid charge. I am sure my Brother Port- 
tobacco, now Emperor of Paskattaway, will assist 
me in it as much as he can, for he is much your 
freind and servant, and hath expressed himselfe to 
me to be so, and giveth you many thancks after his 
Indian fashion for your guift sent him by Mr. 
Lewger. He hath within this two yeares stept into 
the Empire of the Indians by kiUing his eldest 
brother, the old Emperor, and enjoyeth [it] yet w^^^ 
peace through the good correspondencie he keepeth 
w*^ me, w^^^ aweth his Indians from offereing any 
harme unto him. 

" I had procured a red bird and kept it a good 
while to have sent it to you, but I had the ill fortune 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 8 1 

to loose it by the negligence of my servant, who 
carelesly let it out of the cage. The beaver which 
I sent you the last yeares belongeth unto the account 
of the stock Capt. Humber brought over. 

"The Lyon I had for you is dead: if I can get 
another I will, and send it to you. 

" I have had no leisure all this last winter to [go to] 
Virginia to procure an act to be made by the gen- 
erall assembly then held there for the secureing of 
your right in the trade w^^' in your precincts; and 
thought it to no purpose to recommend it to Mr. 
Hawley's care after I had understood so much of 
him concerning Palmers Ileand ; against there next 
asembly, w^^ will be at the returne of shipping next 
yeare, I will provide a bill drawne as effectual for 
that purpose as I can and endeavour what I may to 
get it passed. 

" I have sent you herew*^' a letter from Mr. Robert 
Philpot of Kent (who hath at this present the com- 
maund of the Ileand) to his father, the keeper of 
hygh parcke. I pray cause it to be delivered unto 
him, and finde some occasion to commend his sonne 
unto him for his faire carriage here, as he doth de- 
serve, for he came in at the first claim I made of 
the Ileanders submission to your Pattent, and in- 
courage his father, I pray, what you can, to supply 
him this yeare, for that I understand is the intent 
of his letter to him. 

" I have writ unto you concerning the deer you 
sent for in an other letter by it selfe sent herew*^ as 
you appointed me. Thus w^'' best love and service 
6 



82 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

to my sister Baltimore, and my other two sisters, and 
my Brother Peasely, I rest 

" Your most affectionate loveing Brother 

" Leonard Calvert. 

From Virginia this 25th of Aprill, 1638." 

Boteler seems to have shown the good inclination 
that Governor Calvert hoped to find in him; and 
being a m.an of influence on the island, was ap- 
pointed commander of the Kent militia; a position 
which shows how completely he had gained Calvert's 
confidence. This confidence was not misplaced: 
he continued faithful to the government, and held 
various offices of trust in the province until his death 
in 1642. 

The Kent islanders, who were a peaceful folk, ac- 
cepted the situation very cheerfully, had their lands, 
to which they had as yet no title, confirmed to them, 
and in all ways deported themselves as good citizens. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 83 



CHAPTER V. 

The first assembly held in Maryland seems to 
have consisted of all the freemen in the province; 
but how summoned we cannot say, as the records 
are lost. The assembly of 1637-38 was composed 
also of all the freemen, present in person or by 
proxy. The anode of summoning them seems to 
have been compounded out of the two English 
methods of summoning the lords and the commons. 
The councillors, of course, were summoned by special 
writ; but certain of the planters, who were not 
councillors, were also summoned by writs to them 
directed; among others Fathers White and Altham, 
who excused themselves as sick. Again, writs were 
sent out for electing burgesses; as for example, 
Robert Evelin, commander of Kent, is summoned 
personally by writ, and also commanded " to assem- 
ble all the freemen inhabiting within any part of your 
jurisdiction, and then and there to proclaim and 
publish the said general assembly ; and to endeavour 
to persuade such and so many of the said freemen 
as you shall think fit to repair personally to the said 
assembly at the time and place prefixed; and to 
give free power and liberty to all the rest of the said 
freemen either to be present at the said assembly 
if they so please ; or otherwise to elect and nominate 



84 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

such and so many persons as they or the major part 
of them so assembled shall agree upon to be the 
deputies or burgesses for the said freemen, in their 
name and stead to advise and consult of such things 
as shall be brought into deHberation in the said as- 
sembly." 

Thus every freeman, whether especially or gener- 
ally summoned, had a right to a seat if he chose to 
claim it; and the burgesses, so far as they were 
representative, were merely proxies, and so voted. 
For instance, on a question, Messrs. Gierke, Vaughan, 
Fleet and Parrie vote "yea," "being in all eighteen 
voices with their proxies." A freeman, who had 
given a proxy, presented himself in person, revoked 
his proxy, and took his seat. The idea was that of 
a purely popular assembly, in which every freeman 
was to have voice and vote, either personally, or by 
a personal, and not collective, representation; and 
therefore the number of burgesses was left optional 
with the electors. 

The proceedings of this session of 1637-38 gave 
rise to that important change which transferred the 
initiative in legislation from the proprietary to the 
freemen. The charter, as we have seen, gave Bal- 
timore the power of making laws, with the advice 
and consent of the freemen assembled for that pur- 
pose. At the time it was issued it was Baltimore's 
purpose to accompany his colonists; and though 
that was found impossible, he expected to remove 
to Maryland the next year. Thus the inconve- 
nience caused by the long delay in the transmission 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 85 

of laws was not anticipated. Whether he sent out 
any laws to the assembly which met in February, 
1634-35, and passed sundry " wholesome laws and 
ordinances," we do not know. In his commission 
to the governor, dated April, 1637, he directs him 
to summon an assembly in the following January, 
and signify to them his dissent to all laws by them 
heretofore made. If this refers to laws passed in 
1634-35, he must have kept the province waiting for 
his assent or dissent for more than two years. It 
may be noted that he does not, in this commission, 
specify any laws or the time of their enactment, but 
simply all laws by them heretofore made. It is not 
an unreasonable conjecture that the laws of 1634-35 
had been dissented to long before, but that — consid- 
ering the slowness and infrequency of communica- 
tion with England at the time — he wished to provide 
against the possible contingency that an assembly 
had been called (perhaps on some emergency) and 
had passed laws without his having had a chance to 
hear of it, and so to have the ground cleared for his 
own code. 

For this session of 1637-38 he sent out a body of 
laws by Secretary John Lewger ; but on being pro- 
posed to the assembly they were rejected. Why 
rejected, we do not know: Calvert simply says there 
were many things in them unsuitable to the people's 
good. Cornwaleys writes that from both those sent 
out by Baltimore and those proposed by the assem- 
bly there were "just grounds to fear the introduce- 
ment of laws prejudicial to our honour and freedom." 



S6 GEORGE^AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

The question then arose, by what laws should the 
province be governed until they could hear again 
from England? Cornwaleys proposed "the laws 
of England ; " but the commission of the governor 
being produced, it was found that he had no author- 
ity to punish any offenses the penalty for which 
touched life or member, except by the laws of the 
province, and at present there were none. Another 
suggested that it was hardly possible such enormous 
offenses should be committed except in the case of 
mutiny, and then they might be dealt with by mar- 
tial law. After mature consideration, a small body 
of laws was drawn up, passed, and sent to the pro- 
prietary for his assent. 

From Calvert's expressions, it would seem that in 
the main these laws were much the same as those 
Baltimore had sent out, only altered in certain par- 
ticulars that seemed to the assembly objectionable. 
Indeed, from the character and scope of this code 
we can see that it was the result of long and mature 
deliberation, and had been drawn up by some one 
not only awake to the needs of the colony, but well 
versed in the common and statute law of England. 
There is every reason to believe that they were, to 
a large extent, the work of Secretary Lewger, who 
brought them over. Lewger was a Londoner, an 
Oxford man, who had been Bachelor of the Faculty 
in 1.632, and had had ecclesiastical preferment, but 
following the example of his friend ChilHngworth, 
had embraced the faith of Rome. The papers from 
his pen, of which there are many in the records, show 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 87 

great ability and intimate acquaintance with Eng- 
lish law. His friendship with Cecilius was, no doubt, 
formed at Oxford, where they were fellow-students, 
Cecilius having entered Trinity College on June 
25th, 162 1, and matriculated on July i6th. A care- 
ful search of the MS. records of the university fails 
to show that Cecilius ever proceeded to graduation. 
According to Anthony a Wood, Lewger lost his wife 
in Maryland, and soon after returned to London, 
where he died of the plague, contracted in visiting 
poor Catholics, in the dreadful year 1665. 

These laws, however, never went into effect ; from 
which it is inferred that the proprietary dissented 
to them, notwithstanding his brother's recommenda- 
tion. The province now seemed in danger of being 
left without any laws at all. Baltimore, however, 
thought it wiser to waive his chartered right than 
imperil the welfare of his colony or appear to an- 
tagonize their interests, and in the following August 
he sent out a new commission to the governor, au- 
thorizing him to give his assent to any laws enacted 
by the freemen, which assent should make them 
temporarily valid until his own confirmation or re- 
jection should be received. Thus, from this time 
forth the initiative in legislation remained with the 
representatives of the people. 

Owing to these pecuHar circumstances this as- 
sembly, which was composed of all the freemen of 
Maryland^ present in person or represented by 
proxy, to the number of about ninety, found itself 
in a dilemma which is perhaps unexampled. Dur- 



88 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

ing the session, as we have seen, Governor Calvert 
made his expedition to Kent, leaving Lewger to 
preside in his absence, and sent down Boteler and 
Smith to be held in custody of the sheriff until his 
return. On his return and reassumption of his 
place, he called up Smith for trial on the charges of 
piracy and murder. But there was no prison in the 
province to hold him, no grand jury to indict him, 
no court to try him, and no law to try him by. 

The assembly solved this problem in a masterly 
way. The governor impanelled twenty-four mem- 
bers of the assembly as a grand inquest, and they 
brought in an indictment. The assembly then re- 
solved itself into a high court of justice, with Secre- 
tary Lewger as attorney-general (he holding a com- 
mission to that effect), gave the prisoner liberty of 
challenge, heard the evidence, and found him guilty; 
though whether under a law of 1634-35 making mur- 
ders and felonies punishable as by English law, or 
under the common law of England, does not appear. 
Smith demanded privilege of clergy, but it was dis- 
allowed, and a special act was passed confirming the 
sentence. The assembly then resolved itself into a 
coroner's jury and inquired into the deaths in the 
fight on the Pocomoke, and passed an act attainting 
Claiborne of piracy and murder committed by his 
subordinates acting under his orders, and declaring 
forfeit his Hfe and property in the province. 

What became of Smith, we do not certainly know. 
We have seen that he petitioned Baltimore for a 
pardon, and that the governor wished to keep him 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 89 

a while on probation, to see if he were a fit subject 
of clemency. It was alleged by some of the Kent 
Islanders, some years later, that he was executed, 
and this may have been the case ; though the fact 
does not appear in the records, and the character of 
those allegations is not such as to command much 
confidence. 

Some particulars of what was going on in the 
province at this time have been preserved in a 
long letter from Father White to the proprietary, 
dated February 20th, 1638-39. The time of service 
of the indented men who came over in the first immi- 
gration was now expiring, and as they became free- 
men they either received land from their employers * 
or took it up from the proprietary; thus plantations 
increased, and large crops of corn and tobacco were 
raised- On the other hand, they have had much sick- 
ness of an epidemic kind, and lost sixteen of the col- 
ony; rather, he thinks, by following the physician's 
advice, " eating flesh and drinking hot waters [spiritu- 
ous liquors], than by any great malice of their fevers," 
for those who were abstemious in their diet soon re- 
covered. He then gives his lordship his views as to 
the causes of the fevers in question : " Really, my 
lord, I take the cause of the sickness here to be 
the over-goodness of land, which maketh the viands 
so substantial that if due regulation be not used in 

*A decision of the Provincial Court in 1648 declares " the custom of the 
country," or what a servant who has served his time is entitled to receive 
from his employer, viz., " one cap or hat, one new cloth or frieze suit, one 
shirt, one pair shoes and stockings, one axe, one broad and one narrow 
hoe, fifty acres land, and three barrels of corn." 



90 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

the time of summer, when the heat of stomachs is 
commonly weakest, either they He undigested and 
so breed agues, or are thoroughly digested and so 
breed great quantities of blood and vital spirits, 
which taking fire, either from the heat of the season 
(our buildings being far unfit for such a climate) or 
from some violent exercise, beget fevers troublesome 
enough where we want physic, yet not dangerous at 
all if people will be ruled in their"tiiet, which is hard 
for the vulgar unless we had an hospital here to 
care them and keep them to rule perforce ; which 
some worthy persons of this place do think upon." 

He has himself been twice given over, he says, 
but is none the worse for it, except a slight deafness, 
which is not only a hindrance " in an office I have " 
— by which guarded expression he means hearing 
confessions — but also in learning the Indian lan- 
guage, which has "many dark gutturals" and slurs 
final syllables in an awkward way. 

The reservation to his lordship of the monopoly 
of the trade for beaver with the Indians, he thinks 
discouraging to new adventurers, especially as the 
Indians had not as yet " deserted the land and left 
it to our division." In fact, certain gentlemen who 
had proposed to bring five hundred men into the 
colony, had given up the idea when they heard of 
this restriction. He thinks that an impost of five 
per cent on all trade for seven years, afterward to 
be lowered to one per cent, would easily be borne, 
and would be more profitable in the end. Other 
suggestions he has to make ; for example, that Bal- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



91 



timore should send over an indented brick-maker, 
from whom all the colonists should buy their bricks; 
and so for other trades. In brief^ he planned a 
complete system of monopolies, according to the 
economical ideas of the time, when men had not 
learned that the way to insure a large revenue is to 
encourage industries, not to hamper or restrict 
them. 

Another and better idea of his is to see if some- 
thing cannot be done in the way of making native 
wines. "I have drunk wine," he says, "made of 
the wild grapes, not inferior in its age to any wine 
of Spain. It had much of muscadine grape, but 
was a dark red inclining to brown. I have not seen 
as yet any white grape excepting the fox-grape, 
which hath some stain of white ; but of the red grape 
I have seen much diversity." And he suggests that 
his lordship plant vineyards and monopolize the 
wine-making. All these suggestions are offered to 
tempt the proprietary either to abandon his monop- 
oly of the beaver trade, or to grant licenses on more 
favorable terms than ten per cent on the cloth and 
beaver for five years. 

Baltimore, however, judged wisely that it was bet- 
ter to leave all domestic industries to develop them- 
selves free and unshackled, reserving the Indian or 
beaver trade to himself, and granting licenses to 
whom he pleased. This regulation was relaxed in 
1650, when all the inhabitants were free to apply 
for and receive licenses from the governor, on giving 
security to pay the ten per cent, and not to sell 



92 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

arms and ammunition to the Indians or breed any 
quarrels with them. 

The proprietary's revenues from his province, it 
may be mentioned here, though they varied at dif- 
ferent times, were mainly derived from four sources : 
his quit-rents; licenses to trade with the Indians, 
and some other licenses ; half a tobacco-duty of two 
shiUings per hogshead on all exported (the other 
moiety being used for the defense of the province ; 
that is, providing arms and ammunition, paying and 
feeding the militia and rangers when on duty, and 
so forth) ; and port duties on all vessels that en- 
tered the ports. Out of these revenues he had to 
pay the salaries of the governor, councillors, and 
some other officers. What his average income from 
the province was in the time of which we are writ- 
ing cannot be stated; but it could not at that, or 
indeed at any, time have been very large. 

One source of revenue — namely, that derived from 
felons' forfeitures, waifs and strays, and deodands — 
must have been more nominal than real. Felons 
were usually pardoned ; and as for deodands, there 
is but one instance in the records, that of a tree 
which, having fallen on a man and killed him, was 
found by the coroner's jury to have "moved to the 
death of the said John Bryant," and therefore to be 
forfeit to the proprietary. 

On the other hand, his English revenues must 
have been considerable ; though here too we have 
no means of estimating their amount. He had in- 
herited all the landed estates of his father in Eng- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



93 



land and Ireland ; and his father-in-law, Lord Arun- 
del, conveyed to him several manors in Berkshire, 
Wiltshire, and probably Oxfordshire, among which 
were the manors of Tisbury and Semley. On the 
manor of Tisbury, Wilts, was Hook House, Lady 
Baltimore's dower-house, where she and her husband 
resided. Hook House is still standing, a substan- 
tial double house of stone, in a plain style of Tudor 
architecture, with an air of solidity and of unosten- 
tatious comfort. 

It is probable also that Baltimore had other do- 
mestic sources of revenue than the rents from his 
estates, for in an indenture still extant he covenants 
for a certain sum to supply William Catchmayd, of 
London, fishmonger, with the salmon caught in the 
Avon and other specified places, which right of 
fishery he had received from Lord Arundel. 

Baltimore seems at this time to have had serious 
apprehensions that the persistent solicitations for a 
renewal of the Virginia patent were likely to suc- 
ceed, and their success meant the ruin of Maryland. 
Casting about for a way to meet this threatening 
danger, it occurred to him that perhaps he might 
obtain the government of Virginia himself. He 
broached the matter to his friend Secretary Winde- 
bank, asking him to suggest it to the king as if of 
his own motion, and not as coming from Baltimore. 
He was to assure the king that if this might be 
done, the royal revenues from Virginia would be 
much increased. Probably Windebank threv/ cold 
water on the idea: at all events, we hear no more 
of it. 



94 GEORGE AND CEC'lLIUS CALVERT. 

Claiborne's alleged grievances were too valuable 
a weapon in the hands of Baltimore's enemies to be 
readily let drop ; and although his pretensions had 
been decisively set aside, they could be used to dis- 
quiet and trouble. He now petitioned the king for 
redress, and the matter came to a hearing before 
the Privy Council on April 4th, 1638. 

Claiborne's allegation now was that in virtue of a 
commission from the king he had discovered and 
planted the isle of Kent, and that now Baltimore 
was seeking to dispossess him and debar him of his 
discovery; and furthermore had seized his boats, 
killed his people, and defamed himself. 

He now begs to make a proposition to the king 
in the name of himself and partners: that they will 
pay into the exchequer £,^"^0 annually for Kent 
Island and Palmer's Island, provided they may have 
a grant in fee of a strip of territory twelve leagues 
broad on both sides the Chesapeake Bay from the 
sea to the mouth of the Susquehanna, and on both 
,sides the Susquehanna to "the Grand Lake of 
Canada." 

The council again reviewed the whole case, all 
parties being present. Claiborne had obtained a 
letter from the king to Baltimore, commanding him 
not to molest the people on Kent Island. But it 
appeared that this letter had been obtained on the 
representation that the island was outside of Balti- 
more's dominions ; whereas it was shown at the hear- 
ing, and indeed was confessed by Claiborne himself, 
that the island was within the limits of Baltimore's 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 



95 



patent; that his own so-called grant was only a 
license, under the Scottish signet, to trade, giving 
him no title to the soil nor permission to plant and 
settle. The council accordingly confirmed their 
order of July, 1633, and once more declared the right 
and title to the territory in question to be absolutely 
in the Lord Baltimore, with the sole authority to 
grant licenses to trade. Touching the injuries al- 
leged, they saw no occasion to interfere, and again 
left the parties to the ordinary course of justice. 

As Baltimore had been, as the instructions show, 
anxious to make a friend of Claiborne, whose influ- 
ence and knowledge of the country would have made 
him a valuable member of his young colony ; as he 
would willingly have granted him what land he 
wanted on terms at least as liberal as any he could 
have expected from Virginia; as Maryland had a 
great advantage over Virginia in being free to trade 
with foreign nations, which Virginia was not, it is 
not easy to see why Claiborne should have chosen 
to pursue a fruitless policy of hostility and vexation 
which brought him no advantage. Some writers 
have imagined an old quarrel in England ; but this 
is pure phantasy: it is most likely that Claiborne 
was the cat's-paw of those members of the old Vir- 
ginia company and their powerful abettors who were 
never wearied in their attempts to overthrow Balti- 
more's charter. 

This view is still further confirmed by the fact 
that as late as 1676, circumstances being somewhat 
favourable for the renewal of attacks upon the char- 



96 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

ter of Maryland, we find Claiborne, then in his old 
age, signing a memorial to Charles II., in which he, 
the fierce parliamentarian, Bennett's colleague and 
Cromwell's commissioner, tries to pose as an old 
broken cavalier, calls himself a "poor old servant 
of your majesty's father and grandfather," and 
speaks of Charles I. as "your father of glorious 
memory" to whom he had been secretary of state; 
as if Charles would never know that he had re- 
nounced that office to accept it again from hands 
red with that father's blood. 

Lovers of historic paradox in recent times have 
tried to defend the cause and course of Claiborne, 
but it can only be done by ignoring the facts. In 
the first place, as has been already pointed out, Clai- 
borne never had a grant of land, either from the 
crown or from Virginia, of any land north of the 
Potomac. What he had was merely a license to 
trade with the Indians, the Dutch, and the English 
plantations to the north. He never took up, but 
simply "squatted" on, the land in Kent Island 
where he had fixed his trading-post ; and having no 
title himself, he could give none to his men who re- 
sided at the post. He himself had no residence 
there. This fact, that he had no ownership of the soil, 
was insisted on by his witnesses in his lawsuit with 
his principals, the London merchants, as one cause of 
the ill-success of their adventure. The merchandise 
and other property of the concern, in both Kent 
Island and Virginia, were seized, not by Baltimore, 
but by Evehn, the merchants' attorney, and for their 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



97 



use. It is true his life and personal goods in Mary- 
land were declared forfeit by the assembly of 1637- 
38; but not until after every attempt had been made 
to establish friendly relations with him, which h«^ 
had requited, first with defiance of the law, and then 
by sending his servants to commit piracy and mur- 
der. If we could find him striking one manly blow, 
or even once putting his person in danger, we might 
perhaps have some imperfect sympathy with him; 
but not for one who stirs up strife and then gets 
safely out of the way before the fighting begins, leav- 
ing all the risk to be taken by others who have nothing 
to gain. 

7 



98 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 



CHAPTER VI. 

In addition to these troubles and vexations, Bal- 
timore was now confronting a serious problem, re- 
quiring all his prudence and all his firmness, the de- 
cision of which shaped the whole future policy of 
Maryland. 

Both he and his father had planned to make 
Maryland a refuge for their persecuted fellow-believ- 
ers, without making it a distinctively Catholic prov- 
ince, which, of course, would have resulted in its 
ruin. The only safe course open to him was to 
make the toleration universal. His son Charles 
states this distinctly in his answers to the inquiries 
of the Board of Trade in 1678: "My father, albeit 
he had an absolute Hberty given to him and his heirs 
to carry thither any persons out of any of the do- 
minions that belonged to the crown of England who 
should be found willing to go thither, yet when he 
came to make use of that liberty he found very few 
who were inclined to go and seat themselves in those 
parts, but such as for some reason or other could 
not live with ease in other places; and of these a 
great part were such as could not conform in all 
particulars to the several laws of England relating 
to religion. Many there were of this sort of people 
who declared their willingness to go and plant them- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 99 

selves in this province, so as they might have a gen- 
eral toleration settled there by a law, by which all of 
all sorts who professed Christianity in general might 
be at liberty to worship God in such manner as was 
most agreeable with their respective judgments and 
consciences, without being subject to any penalties 
whatever for their so doing, provided the civil peace 
were preserved. And that for the securing the civil 
peace, and preventing all heats and feuds which were 
generally observed to hapjpen amongst such as differ 
in opinions upon occasion of reproachful nicknames, 
and reflecting upon each others' opinions, it might 
by the same law be made penal to give any offense 
in that kind. These were the first-planters of this 
province; and without the complying with these 
conditions, in all probability this province had never 
been planted. To these conditions my father agreed ; 
and accordingly soon after the first planting of this 
province these conditions, by the unanimous consent 
of all who were concerned, were passed into a law ; 
and the inhabitants of this province have found 
such effects from this law, and from the strict ob- 
servance of it, as well in relation to their quiet as 
in relation to the farther peopHng of this province, 
that they look on it as that whereon alone depends 
the preservation of their peace, their properties, and 
their liberties." 

Those who could not conform in all particulars 
were, of course, the Roman Catholics ; and doubt- 
less in this matter they were guided by the counsel 
of their spiritual heads. To these the proprietary's 



lOO GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

palatinate jurisdiction, exempting the province from 
the operation of the statute law and from all parlia- 
mentary legislation, enabled him to hold out the 
prospect of peacefully enjoying, under a friendly 
government, their religious liberties, and those not 
depending on the arbitrary will or caprice of Balti- 
more or his successors, but firmly secured by statute. 
The law referred to must have been one passed in 
1634-35 ; as the act of 1649 would hardly be referred 
to as the immediate result of this understanding. 

Baltimore's undertaking was favoured and assisted 
by the leading men among the English Catholics, 
a number of whom were men of high rank and great 
influence. On the other hand, the enemies of the 
new enterprise took every occasion to speak of 
Maryland as a popish colony, dangerous to England 
and to the Protestant English in America. Balti- 
more had to steer a wary course : to repel Catholics 
was to give up the design he had at heart, to frus- 
trate hopes he had raised, and to cut off one great 
source of colonization ; while to favour them too 
markedly was to play into the hands of an already 
powerful and dangerous opposition. The only way 
open was to let it be known that all professors of 
the Christian faith should stand upon an equal foot- 
ing in the new colony. 

Before sending out his first colony, he took coun- 
sel with Father Richard Blount, the provincial of 
the Jesuit order in England; and that official, after 
thoroughly weighing the matter, determined to give 
the support and influence of the society to the new 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. loi 

undertaking, and to send out Jesuit priests to offi- 
ciate among the Catholic colonists and labour as mis- 
sionaries among the Indians. The three chief offi- 
cers of the colony, Leonard Calvert, Jerome Hawley, 
and Thomas Cornwaleys, were Catholics, and so 
were many of the leading settlers ; though the greater 
number of the colonists were Protestants. But of 
these again a large part were persons indentured or 
otherwise held to service, who, not ranking as free- 
men, had neither seat nor voice in the assembly. 
So the majority in the assembly of 1637-38 were 
Catholics, while the council was composed alto- 
gether of members of that faith. Three of the bur- 
gesses summoned were the Jesuits, Fathers White 
and Altham, and Mr. Copley, but they excused 
themselves from attending. 

The next assembly, that of 1638-39, which had 
been raised in the way we have seen to the position 
of a genuine legislative body, drew up a code of 
thirty-six acts, but for some unknown reason they 
never passed to a third reading. In fact, they were 
too cumbrous and complex for the infant state of 
the colony. It was too early yet to establish county 
courts, a court of chancery, a "pretorial" court, 
and the other machinery of a populous State. It 
was in this unadopted code that the provisions oc- 
cur that the lord of a manor should be tried by a 
jury composed of lords of manors, and if convicted 
of a capital offense should suffer death by beheading 
instead of hanging, which have led some historians 
to assert that at first there was a privileged class in 
Maryland ; but such was not the case. 



I02 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

In place of these the assembly passed a brief 
code in the form of a single act. Its first section 
provided that " Holy church within this province 
shall have all her rights and liberties; " the second, 
that a general oath of allegiance to the king should 
be taken ; the third confirmed the rights and prero- 
gatives of the proprietary, and the fourth, fifth, and 
sixth provided that the inhabitants should have all 
their rights and liberties, according to the great 
charter of England, the right to the common law, 
and the benefit of trial by jury. By these sections 
of the act, which are really a bill of rights, the fun- 
damental relations between the Christian church, 
the king, the proprietary, and the people are broadly 
defined, and a firm foundation laid for all future 
legislation. 

To the phrase relating to "holy church," no Pro- 
testant could reasonably object; it was the first 
clause of Magna Charta, promulgated when there 
could be no question as to what was meant by 
"holy church," and still cherished as the palladium 
of English liberty. And, of course, no Catholic 
would object. Like the phrase "God's holy and 
true Christian reHgion," in the charter, it could be 
accepted by all believers in Christianity; though in 
strict fact the phrase " holy church " was never 
applied to the Protestant Church of England. 

Other sections provided for the calling of assem- 
blies, and for the civil jurisdiction in matters testa- 
mentary or involving the estates of decedents. 

Thus this act, while providing, in a general phrase. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 103 

for the rights of the church, placed the whole pop- 
ulation, cleric as well as lay, under the civil law. 

The reading of this act must have given Balti- 
more anxious thought. It was all very well to pro- 
vide for the rights and liberties of the church ; but 
when it came to a decision what was the church 
contemplated by the act, and what were these rights, 
a false step might be disastrous. In England, tes- 
tamentary matters, the appointment of administra- 
tors, etc., were under the jurisdiction of the ecclesi- 
astical courts. In Maryland, as yet, there were no 
ecclesiastics but the Jesuits : were they to have con- 
trol over all orphans' estates? One of the rights 
most strongly asserted by the Church of Rome was 
that priests and church property were amenable to 
ecclesiastical law only: were they to be put on the 
same footing as laymen — to be hable to summons, 
arrest, or distraint, to civil or criminal process in 
the ordinary courts of law? 

However he might decide, he was sure to be in- 
volved in trouble. 

And again, were there to be two laws, two juris- 
dictions, in the province; another authority than his 
own; courts that neither administered his laws nor 
acknowledged his writ? 

He must have seen that as his colony grew, it 
would grow numerically more and more Protestant. 
As the' time of service of the apprentices and in- 
dented servants expired, and they became freemen, 
electors, and eligible to office, the assembly must 
show an increasing, and even preponderating. Pro- 



I04 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

testant element. He was bound in both justice and 
policy to look to the future. 

Another important point had arisen. Jesuit 
priests, as we have seen, had come out with the first 
colonists, and others had arrived since. They were 
not numerous at any time, none of the letters men- 
tioning more than five ; but they were full of zeal in 
their labours, and surrounded themselves with a band 
of devoted disciples. They travelled as missionaries 
among the Indians, teaching and converting them, 
in which they were signally successful. In return, 
the kings and chiefs had given them immense grants 
of land, which, in addition to those taken up under 
the conditions of plantation, were held by Thomas 
Copley, one of their members, to the use of the 
order. Here was another danger. Were lands in 
Maryland to be held by any other title than as 
grants from the proprietary? Were great estates to 
grow up, held in mortmain, always increasing, and 
never reverting to secular hands? 

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown ; and 
Baltimore, by virtue of his charter, a regulus, or little 
king of a petty dominion, was confronted by the 
same problems that had vexed the souls of John, 
of the third Edward, and the second and eighth 
Henries. 

Secretary Lewger, whose recent conversion to the 
faith of Rome had not eradicated the old Protestant 
leaven in his habits of thought and views of the re- 
lations of the individual to the state, held strongly 
that the civil law should be supreme over all ; that 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 105 

all should stand on the same footing in secular mat- 
ters, and that all grants from the Indians should be 
vacated. Of his proceedings Copley bitterly com- 
plained in a long letter to the proprietary, written in 
the hope of procuring his dissent to the new laws. 
He points out that if the Jesuit fathers are to hold 
their lands as manors under the conditions of planta- 
tion, they will never be able to pay the quit-rent of 
20 shillings per thousand acres, besides the obligation 
of finding fifteen freemen at public musters or in 
case of war. But especially is he grieved that no 
favour is to be shown to ecclesiastical persons, but 
they are to be treated in all respects like laymen, as 
iijus divinum had never been heard of. 

"There is not," he complains, "any care at all 
taken to promote the conversion of the Indians, to 
provide or show any favour to ecclesiastical persons, 
or to preserve for the church the immunity and priv- 
ileges which she enjoyeth everywhere else ; but Mr. 
Lewger seemeth to defend opinions here that she 
hath no privilege jure divino. That bulls, canons, 
and casuists are little to be regarded in these cases, 
because they speak for themselves, as if others op- 
posing them had no self-interest; and therefore 
must know better what belongs to the church than 
she herself. That privileges are not due to the 
church until the commonwealth in which the church 
is, grant them. And therefore, while they grant 
none, I doubt that not only Mr. Lewger, but also 
some others that I fear adhere too much to him, 
conceive that they may proceed with ecclesiastical 



io6 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

persons as with others ; and accordingly they seem 
to resolve to bind them to all their laws, and to ex- 
act of them as of others; and in practice already 
they have formerly granted warrants against some 
that dwell with us, whom though the sheriff (who 
hath formerly been a pursuivant, and is now a chief 
Protestant) desired me to send him down, yet he 
added (even before the governor, if I be not mis- 
taken) that he must otherwise fetch him down. 
Again, even already, before your Lordship hath con- 
firmed the laws, Mr. Lewger hath demanded of me 
to be paid this year fifteen hundred weight of to- 
bacco toward the building a fort ; whereas I dare 
boldly say that the whole colony together never be- 
stowed on me the worth of five hundred weight. 
One would think that even out of gratitude they 
might free us from such kind of taxation, especially 
seeing we put no tax upon them but help them 
gratis, and help them also in such a manner that I 
am sure they cannot complain." 

He earnestly advises Baltimore " to read over and 
ponder well the Bulla Ccenae," that is, the famous 
bull /;/ C(E7ia Domini^ which denounces excommu- 
nication against all those who attempt to violate, 
deny, or curtail the ecclesiastical rights of the Ro- 
man see and church, and affirms the pope's absolute 
supremacy over both spiritual and temporal powers. 

He asks, in conclusion, that Baltimore will send 
him a private order that ecclesiastics might, while 
the government is Catholic, enjoy the following 
privileges : 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 107 

1. That the church and their houses might be 
sanctuary. 

2. That they and their domestic servants, and at 
least half of their planting servants, might be free 
from public taxes and services, such as militia-train- 
ing and the like. And adds : "And that the rest of 
our servants and our tenants, though exteriorly they 
do as others in the colony, yet that in the manner of 
exacting or doing it, privately the custom of other 
Catholic countries may be observed as much as may 
be." To this is appended a marginal note in Balti- 
more's own handwriting: "All their tenants, as well 
as servants, he intimates here ought to be exempted 
from the temporal government." 

3. That though publicly they should allow their 
causes to be heard and tried by the civil authori- 
tites, yet that it should be with the private under- 
standing that these authorities acted but as arbitrators 
and defenders of the church, because the ecclesias- 
tical jurisdiction was not yet settled. 

4. That they may go freely among the Indians 
without a license. 

5. That they may take up and hold so much land 
as they should find requisite, under the first (or most 
favourable) conditions. 

6. That though they should relinquish the use of 
many ecclesiastical privileges when they judged it 
expedient so to do, yet that the determination of 
that expediency was to be left entirely to their dis- 
cretion. 

On this letter Baltimore has indorsed with his own 



io8 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

hand: "Mr. Tho. Copley to me from St. Maries. 
Herein are demands of very extravagant privi- 
leges." 

Comwaleys, though a layman, wrote at the same 
time to much the same effect. He anticipates trou- 
ble from the new laws, if Baltimore " be not more 
wary in confirming than we have been wise in pro- 
posing." And adjures him, with great emphasis and 
solemnity, " not to permit the least clause to pass 
that shall not first be thoroughly scanned and re- 
solved by wise, learned, and religious divines to be 
no ways prejudicial to the immunities and privileges 
of that church which is the only true guide to all 
eternal happiness." He reminds him of his "first 
pious pretense for the planting of the province," 
alluding to the opening phrase of the charter, to 
the effect that the grantee is incited by a pious zeal 
for the extension of the Christian religion ; and that 
his own security of conscience was the first condi- 
tion he expected from this government, and if that 
is not to be had, he must, at whatever cost, betake 
himself elsewhere. He ends by a warm defense of 
his friend Mr. Hawley, who, probably from the sus- 
picions intimated in the governor's letter, stood in 
some discredit with the proprietary, and pronounces 
a glowing eulogy on Madam Eleanor Hawley, " who, 
by her comportment in these difficult affairs of her 
husband's, hath manifested as much virtue and dis- 
cretion as can be expected from the sex she owns ; 
whose industrious housewifery hath so adorned this 
desert, that should his discouragements force him 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



109 



to withdraw himself and her, it would not a little 
eclipse the glory of Maryland." 

The present writer confesses that it is with a glow 
of satisfaction he thus for the first time makes pub- 
lic this tribute to the virtues and graces of a worthy 
gentlewoman, whose existence has, as he beHeves, 
been unremarked by all previous historians. Mr. 
Hawley died in July, 1638, and his widow survived 
him. 

Such an appeal, coming from one of the men on 
whom he most relied, who had been one of the first 
to adventure his fortunes in the new colony, and was 
its bravest and most energetic defender, must have 
carried great weight : but Baltimore evidently either 
feared the power or disliked the influence of the 
Jesuit order in Maryland, and he was not to be 
moved from his course either by threats of papal 
bulls, hints that his purposes will be suspected, or 
gloomy presages of divine judgment. 

He applied to the Propaganda in Rome to issue 
authority to a prefect and secular priests to take 
charge of the Maryland mission. The Jesuits, with 
some justice, appealed to the Holy See, pointing 
out that they were the first in the field, had laboured 
diligently and endured much hardship, and now it 
hardly seemed fair that others should step in and 
reap the fruit of their labours. Baltimore's request, 
however, was granted : he was authorized to remove 
the Jesuits, two secular priests were sent out, and 
the mission was placed under the control of Dom 
Rosetti, titular archbishop of Tarsus. 



no GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

In 1641 Baltimore issued new conditions of plan- 
tation. The first conditions provided that every one 
of the first adventurers who brought out five colo- 
nists should have a manor of two thousand acres, at 
a yearly rent of four hundred pounds of wheat; for 
a less number than five, a hundred acres per man 
(himself included) and fifty acres for every child, 
at a rent of ten pounds of wheat per acre. Adven- 
turers who came in after 1635 received a manor of 
a thousand acres for each five persons at a rental of 
twenty shillings, payable in the commodities of the 
country. For less numbers the same as before, at 
twelve pence rental for fifty acres. The lord of a 
manor had the right of holding courts baron and 
courts leet, and forms for proceedings in these 
courts were sent out. The conditions of 1641 
granted two thousand acres to each adventurer of 
British or Irish descent who brought over twenty 
emigrants, the grant to be held at an annual quit- 
rent of forty shillings ; and for a less number, fifty 
acres per head for adults, and twenty-five for chil- 
dren, at a quit-rent of sixpence for each twenty-five 
acres, all payable in commodities of the country. 

To these, two other conditions were added which 
do not appear on the record, but have been pre- 
served in the archives of the Jesuit society at Stony- 
hurst. Whether they were published in the province 
or not is not known. These conditions provided 
that no corporation, fraternity, or political body, ec- 
clesiastical or lay, should have the power of acquir- 
ing or enjoying any lands in Maryland, either imme- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. m 

diately or held in trust for them, without special 
license in each case; and that no person should 
give or aUenate any lands or tenements to any such 
society, or to trustees for its use, for any of the uses 
prohibited in the statute of mortmain, without spe- 
cial Hcense from the proprietary. 

These conditions were accompanied by an oath to 
be taken by all who took up lands under them. It 
was to the effect that the grantee would, not accept 
or hold any lands in the province under any title 
except one derived by grant from the proprietary. 

When these conditions arrived, the governor and 
secretary — no doubt in pursuance of instructions 
from Baltimore— visited the Jesuit fathers and held 
a conference with them. The article which brought 
all the property they had acquired under the statute 
of mortmain presented the first difficulty ; but Cal- 
vert explained this as only applying to future acqui- 
sitions, and not to lands already acquired or promised 
under the old conditions ; with the clause, however, 
that no concession of fresh grants under the new 
conditions would be made, unless all previous grants 
were also brought under their operation. With this 
understanding, the fathers thought that as they were 
not to be deprived of any rights or privileges already 
possessed, but were simply offered conditions for 
the future which they were free to take or leave, this 
article did not conflict with the bull In Coena. The 
oath, however, they thought could not be taken or 
administered with a safe conscience. Moreover, the 
fifth article, which discriminated against ecclesiasti- 



112 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

cal bodies, making them incapable of acquiring lands, 
seemed to them in direct conflict with the bull. 

The secretary then propounded a series of ques- 
tions drawn up by Baltimore, evidently with great 
care, and covering the whole ground. The real 
question at issue was : What should be the relations 
of the church and ecclesiastical bodies to the civil 
authority in Maryland? The situation was peculiar, 
and indeed unprecedented. On the one hand, Bal- 
timore was a Catholic nobleman, who had founded 
his colony with — as one motive at least — the design 
of providing a refuge for himself and those of his 
own faith from the persecutions and humihations to 
which they were subjected in England. We say 
for himself, for there can be no reasonable doubt 
that he had intended to accompany his first colo- 
nists ; but finding that impossible, resolved to follow 
them the next year. The persistent attacks upon 
the charter, the constant defamation of him to the 
Privy Council, the exhaustless resources of malignity 
that welcomed all calumnies, however frivolous, and 
gave them countenance and importance — these made 
his presence in England always necessary. So far 
as can be seen, he took no active part in English 
affairs, considering it his first duty to watch and 
guard the interests of his colony and his colonists. 

His palatinate jurisdiction, as has before been 
said, gave him powers to protect his fellow-believers 
which he would not otherwise have possessed. With 
these views the enterprise had been promoted by 
the leading Catholics of England, one of whom, 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 113 

Lord Arundel of Wardour^ was Baltimore's father- 
in-law. With these hopes Catholic gentlemen had 
thrown in their fortunes with the new colony, the 
ecclesiastical powers had favoured it, and priests had 
accompanied it, full of zeal and faith. 

But Maryland was in allegiance to a Protestant 
sovereign; its colonists were members of a Protes- 
tant — and jealously Protestant — nation, and them- 
selves for the most part Protestants; they weje sur- 
rounded by Protestant neighbours; powerful and 
vigilant enemies on both sides of the Atlantic were 
watching for any loop-hole of attack, any pretext to 
work the ruin of the infant colony. 

Baltimore, though a sincere Catholic (for his pro- 
fession of Protestantism would have given him at 
once an unassailable position), had seen and was 
daily seeing the baleful effects of rehgious discord 
at home, where the nation was fast drifting into civil 
-war. In this very year, 1641, Strafford, his father's 
fast friend and his own, was executed, and the 
Grand Remonstrance signed. In two months Charles 
would leave London, only to return as a prisoner, 
and in six months open war was to break out. 
These were times that craved wary walking. 

There is little doubt that at this critical juncture 
Baltimore had the advice of Father Henry More, the 
wise and liberal-minded provincial of the Jesuit 
order in England, who had succeeded Father Blount 
in 1638; and it is more than probable that it was 
after consultation with him that he framed the ques- 
tions to be propounded to the Jesuit fathers, which 
8 



114 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

were sure to be referred to the provincial for his 
opinion. These questions were in substance as 
follows : 

1. Whether a Catholic layman could serve as a 
magistrate in any country where all the rights and 
immunities of the church were not preserved. 

2. Whether the exemptions and immunities of 
the clergy were due to them jure divino^ or by spe- 
cific concession from princes and states. 

3. Whether the erection of tribunals belonged to 
the power of the Keys (reserved to the church) or 
the power of the Sword (conceded to the laity) ; and 
whether a prince could erect an ecclesiastical tribu- 
nal without special commission from the pope. 

4. Whether CathoHc legislators could assent to 
laws placing matters testamentary and the distribu- 
tion of the estates of decedents under the control of 
secular courts. 

5. Whether Catholic legislators could consent to 
a law annulling all gifts or conveyances to ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies made without special Hcense from the 
prince. 

6. Whether Catholic legislators could assent to 
laws placing matrimonial matters in the jurisdiction 
of the civil authorities. 

7. Whether Catholic legislators could assent to 
a law prohibiting women from holding lands, unless 
they married within a stated period. (They under- 
stood this law to be intended to prevent women from 
making vows of celibacy, and donating or devising 
their lands for pious uses.) 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 115 

8. Whether a Catholic secular judge could try 
and punish the clergy for crimes or misdemeanors 
without incurring the censures of the bull In Coena. 

9. Whether CathoHc legislators could enact, or a 
Catholic judge enforce, laws imposing taxes for pub- 
He uses upon members of the clergy or ecclesiasti- 
cal bodies without express Hcense from the pope. 

Father White reported these proceedings to the 
provincial, and submitted the questions, somevv^hat 
amplified and drawn up in the form of cases of 
casuistry, for his decison. Father More referred 
them to the Propaganda, with a memorial explain- 
ing the circumstances. He, however, certified that 
the new conditions of plantation did not contain 
anything subjecting Catholics who accepted them to 
the censures denounced by the bull In Coena ; and 
he executed a release to the proprietary of all lands 
in the province granted by Indians or others to the 
society, or held in trust for their use, except such as 
had been or should be granted by the proprietary 
himself. This point being satisfactorily adjusted, 
the order of the Propaganda authorizing the re- 
moval of the Jesuits from Maryland was rescinded. 

An agreement or treaty between the provincial 
and Baltimore was drafted, in which the former en- 
gages, on behalf of the Jesuit order in Maryland, 
that no one of them will in future acquire any terri- 
tory in the province except in due form under a 
grant from the proprietary ; that they will acquire 
no lands for any uses comprised in the statute of 
mortmain ; that they will claim no privileges nor ex- 



ii6 GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 

emptions in temporal matters on the ground of their 
spiritual office; that no Jesuit should be sent to 
Maryland without the proprietary's license, and 
that if he wished any member of that order removed 
from Maryland, such removal would be made, Bal- 
timore paying the expense. 

Whether this compact was ever signed, we have 
no means of knowing. The proprietary was in a 
position to dictate his own terms; and the wide- 
spread dislike and fear of the Jesuit order, which 
were by no means confined to Protestants, must tell 
heavily against his colony if it could, with any show 
of truth, be represented as controlled by Jesuit in- 
fluences. Letters from Mrs. Peaseley and her hus- 
band preserved in the archives of the English Jesuits 
show how zealous were their endeavours to move 
Baltimore from his resolution; but in the main 
points at least he stood firm. 

The whole transaction has left lasting impressions 
upon the institutions of Maryland. In Maryland 
alone of all the States, no land can be held by an 
ecclesiastical body or for a religious use without 
special enabhng legislation; no priest, clergyman, 
or minister of the Gospel can sit, or has ever sat, in 
the legislature ; and — what seems singular — no 
marriage is valid without a religious sanction. Civil 
marriage, as it is called, is unknown in the State, 
though, at one time at least, it seems to have been 
known in the colony. 

The clauses forbidding lands to be held by any 
guild, society, or political body, ecclesiastical or 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 117 

Other, without special license, and prohibiting all 
secret trusts, were embodied in the conditions of 
plantation of 1649. 

It may be added here that the assembly of 1638-39 
took another important step in its own development. 
Instead of the burgesses being merely proxies, or 
representatives of individuals, they became collective 
representatives, two being elected from every hun- 
dred (the electoral district), and the word "proxy" 
disappears from the records. At this election the 
writs were addressed to the freemen of the hundred, 
and the date and place of holding the election 
named. These met and chose two burgesses for 
every hundred, all the electors signing the certificate 
of election, agreeing at the same time what contri- 
bution they would allow them for giving their time 
and labour to the public service. Yet the old idea 
so far remained that two citizens of St. Mary's, who 
presented themselves and claimed seats on the 
ground that they had not assented to the election 
and were therefore not represented, had their claim 
allowed. It must have been at once seen that this 
would involve the anomaly that any two men might 
cancel the vote of an entire hundred ; and as there 
were in 'all but five hundreds represented, eleven 
individuals so presenting themselves would consti- 
tute a majority of the whole province. The case 
does not occur again. The councillors were still 
summoned by special writ. 

To get more perfectly into parliamentary shape, 
they adopted rules of order. The governor was to 



ii8 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

be president and enforce the rules. All speech was 
to be addressed to the president, and the speaker 
was to stand bareheaded. No uncivil te-rms were to 
be used, and no member was to be named except 
by a circumlocution. The house was to sit every- 
day, holidays excepted, and members were finable 
if absent at roll-call. All bills were to be read three 
times, the third and final reading being on the last 
day of the session, when they were adopted or re- 
jected. 

In 1639 Baltimore had the misfortune to lose his 
excellent wife, by birth Lady Anne Arundel, third 
daughter of Thomas, Lord Arundel of Wardour. A 
portrait of this lady, by Vandyck, is preserved at 
Wardour Castle, by which it appears that she was of 
great personal beauty. 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 119 



CHAPTER VII. 

It will be remembered that Governor Calvert, 
when he laid the new conditions of plantation be- 
fore the Jesuit fathers, explained that they did not 
apply to lands already granted or promised. It ap- 
pears that he had conceived himself bound by ex- 
press or implied promise to make considerable addi- 
tional grants, as we find his brother taking him to 
task for violating his orders, in this letter of Novem- 
ber 23d, 1642: 

" Good Brother : — Just now I understand that not- 
withstanding my prohibition to the contrary, another 
member of those of the Hill there hath by a sleight 
got aboard Mr. Ingle's ship in the Downs to take 
his passage for Maryland, which for divers respects 
I have reason to resent as a high affront unto me, 
wherein if you do not that right unto me, as I re- 
quire from you in my instructions dated 20 October 
last, I shall have just case to think that I have put 
my honour there in trust into ill hands. . . . This 
gentleman, the bearer hereof, Mr. Territt, will ac- 
quaint you more particularly with my mind herein 
and with the opinion and sense which divers pious 
and learned men here have to this odious and im- 
pudent injury offered unto me, and with what is law- 



I20 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

fill and most necessary to be done in it, as well for 
the vindication of my honour as in time to prevent a 
growing mischief upon me ; unto whom, wherefore, I 
pray give credit. Mr. Gilmett will, I know, concur 
in opinion with him, for upon divers consults had 
here before he went, he was well satisfied what might 
and ought to be done upon such an occasion. In 
case the man above-mentioned, who goes thither in 
contempt of my prohibition, should be disposed of 
in some place out of my Province before you can 
lay hold of him — for they are so full of shifts and 
devices as I believe they may perhaps send him to 
Pattomack town, thinking by that means to avoid 
your power of sending him back into these parts, 
and yet the affront to me remain, and the danger of 
prejudice also be the same, for (whatsoever you may 
conceive of them, who have no reason, upon my 
knowledge, to love them very much if you knew as 
much as I do concerning their speeches and actions 
here towards you), I am (upon very good reason) 
satisfied in my judgment that they do design my 
destruction ; and I have too good cause to suspect 
that if they cannot make or maintain a party by de- 
\ grees among the English, to bring their ends about, 
1 they will endeavour to do it by the Indians within a 
I I very short time by arming them, &c., against all 
I I those that shall oppose them, and all under pretense 
I I of God's honour and the propagation of the Christian 
I faith, which shall be the mask and vizard to hide 
their other designs withal. If all things that clergy- 
men should do upon these pretenses should be ac- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 121 

counted just and to proceed from God, laymen were 
the basest slaves and most wretched creatures upon 
the earth. And if the greatest saint upon earth 
should intrude himself into my house against my 
will and in despite of me, with intention to save the 
souls of all my family, but withal give me just cause 
to suspect that he likewise designes my temporal 
destruction, .or that being already in my house doth 
actually practise it, although withal he do perhaps 
many spiritual goods, yet certainly I may and ought 
to preserve myself by the expulsion of such an en- 
emy, and by providing others to performe the spirit- 
ual good he did, who shall not have any intention of 
mischief towards me ; for the law of nature teacheth 
this, that it is lawful for every man in his own just 
defense, vim vi repellere. | Those that will be impu- 
dent, must be as impudently dealt withal. In case, 
I say, that the party above-mentioned should escape 
your hands, by the means aforesaid (which by all 
means prevent if possibly you can), then I pray do 
not fail to send Mr. Copley away from thence by 
the next shipping to those parts ; unless he will bring 
the other new-comes into your power to send back 
again; and this I am satisfied here that I may 
for divers reasons cause to be done. . . . The 
princes of Italy who are now up in arms against the 
Pope (although they be Roman Cathohcs) do not 
make any scruple of conscience by force of arms to 
vindicate the injury which they conceive he would 
have done unto the Duke of Parma, by wresting a 
brave palace not far from Rome called Copreroly, 



122 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

with a little territory about it, from the said Duke 
for one of the Pope's nephews ; nor do they much 
esteem his excommunications or bulls in that busi- 
ness, for they believe them to be unjustly grounded, 
and therefore of no validity. . . . 

"I understand that notwithstanding my prohibi- 
tion the last year you did pass grants under my seal 
to those of the Hill, of St. Inigoes and other lands 
at St. Mary's and also of a hundred acres of land at 
Pascataway, some of which, as I am informed, you 
conceived in justice due unto them, and therefore 
thought -yourself obHged to grant them, although it 
were contrary to my directions, which to me seems 
very strange, for certainly I have power to revoke 
any authority I have given you here, either in whole 
or in part ; and if I had thought fit to have totally 
revoked your power of granting any lands there at 
all in my name, certainly no man that is disinter- 
ested could think that you were bound nevertheless 
in conscience to usurp such an authority against my 
will, because in justice divers planters ought to have 
grants from me ; for when I have revoked the power 
I gave you for that purpose, any man else may as 
well as you undertake to pass grants in my name, 
and have as much obligation also in conscience 
to do it. . . . If those persons had had any just 
cause of complaint by having grants refused them, it 
had been your part only to have referred them unto 
me, who knew best my own reasons why I gave 
the aforesaid directions. . . . And for aught you 
know some accident might have happened here that 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 123 

it was no injustice in me to refuse them grants of 
any land at all, and that by reason of some act of 
this state it might have endangered my life and for- 
tune to have permitted them to have had any grants 
at all ; which I do not, I assure you, mention with- 
out good ground. . . . And I do once more strictly 
require you not to suffer any grants of any lands for 
the future to pass my seal here to any member of 
the Hill there, nor to any other person In trust for 
them upon any pretense or claim whatsoever, with- 
out especial warrant under my hand and seal to be 
hereafter obtained from me for that purpose. So I 
rest your most affectionate loving Brother. 

" The masters here of those of the Hill there did 
divers ways importune me to permit some of theirs 
to go this year thither, insomuch as they have, God 
forgive them for it, caused a bitter falling-out be- 
tween my sister Peaseley and me, and some discon- 
tentment also between me and her husband about 
it, because I would not by any means give way to 
the going of any of the aforesaid persons." 

By " those of the Hill,^' the Jesuits are signified, 
and by "their masters," the provincial and other 
high officers of the order in England. The expres- 
sion about *' providing others, who shall not have 
any intention of mischief " is an allusion to his design 
of having the Jesuits replaced by secular priest«s. 
What grounds he had for his bitter feeHng against 
the order and his conviction that they had evil de- 
signs toward him, it is hard to surmise. Even sup- 



124 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

posing that they conceived themselves unjustly 
treated by him, to have overthrown his power would 
have been merely suicidal. But he was irritated 
at their attempts to elude the agreement and their 
ende^vJurs to enter the province by stealth; and he 
was constantly aware that any action which gave a 
colour to the charge that he was making Maryland a 
seminary of Jesuits, would be used with ruinous 
effect in England. Even had there not been this 
danger, we can clearly see that he meant to be mas- 
ter in his own house. 

He now reorganized his government, issuing new 
commissions to the governor and council, and mak- 
ing Secretary Lewger, who had been active in the 
negotiations with the Jesuits, judge in all causes tes- 
tamentary and matrimonial, thus placing these im- 
portant matters definitely in lay hands. 

From the foundation of the colony, until King 
William took the government into his hands in 1692, 
the relations of church and state were as they have 
been since the American Revolution. All forms of 
Christianity were allowed; all Christians stood on 
an equal footing ; and all churches, chapels, and min- 
isters were supported by voluntary contributions. 

In the letter above cited, which is very long, there 
are many other interesting particulars, some of which 
we quote, as we have hardly anything from the pen 
of Cecilius that is not formal and official, and also 
because the letter is a recent discovery. He writes: 
" I pray hasten the design you wrote unto me this 
year, of bringing all the Indians of that province to 



GEORGE AND CECILTUS CALVERT. 125 

surrender their interest and right to me, for I un- 
derstood lately from a member of that body politic 
whom you call those of the Hill there, that Mr. 
White had a great deal of land given him at Pascat- 
taway not long since by Kitamaquund, b_ jre his 
death, which he told me by accident, not conceiving 
that that place was within my Province, or that I 
had anything to do with it, and I had some difficulty 
to satisfy him that it was within my Province. By 
this you may perceive what ways these men go, and 
of what dangerous consequence they are to me. I 
pray do not forget also to prosecute effectually the 
business of the tribute from the Indians, and the 
discovery of the red earth, and to send me the 
quantity I desired with speed." 

Kitamaquund was the emperor of Pascataway, 
the same chief whom Leonard called his " brother 
Portobacco." He succeeded to his barbaric throne 
by murdering his brother Wannas, and died without 
leaving brother or sister, nominating his daughter 
as queen. This the Indians rejected as contrary to 
immemorial usage, as the royal dignity always de- 
scended in the female line,- the parentage of the 
mother being certain, but that of the father uncer- 
tain. Hence the lawful heir of a chief was his ute- 
rine brother or sister, or failing those, a sister's son 
or daughter. In this case the direct line was broken 
for the first time in thirteen generations, and the 
Indians elected another descendant of the royal 
stock. The rejected princess was educated by Mrs. 
Margaret Brent, who named her Mary Brent, after 



126 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

her sister.* The " red earth " is probably a refer- 
ence to a passage in Captain John Smith's narrative 
of his second voyage, where he says that near the 
mouth of a river (the Patapsco) he observed a red 
clay like bole armeniac. 

" The colony of Virginia hath this year by their 
petitions hither desired several things of the King, 
which move but slowly here, for their new agent, Sir 
John Berkeley, is no very good solicitor, and regards 
little but his own subsistence, in which he finds em- 
ployment enough for his thoughts, his fortune being 
very necessitous. I believe that I could stand them 
in some stead here in their business if they would 
deserve it of me ; but it seems I have been so dis- 
obliged this year by them, that I have little reason 
to trouble myself in their behalf. I have deserved bet- 
ter of them, for they had long since, I dare say, been 
reduced under that company which it seems by their 
late protestation they so much abhor to come under, 
had it not been for me." 

It was natural enough that the people of Virginia 
should dread to come again into the hands of those 
who had dealt so ill with them before ; and Balti- 
more offers to help them in England if the assem- 
bly will make a friendly agreement between the 
colonies, and disclaim all part in the attacks made 
on the Maryland charter ; but that they cannot rea- 
sonably expect much service from him if they con- 
tinue doing all in their power to harm him. 

* She afterward married one Fitzherbert, who failing in his expectations 
of " a great portion," we are informed, "civilly parted with her." 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT 127 

In August of this year, 1642, the royal standard 
was set up at Nottingham, and all loyal subjects 
were summoned to rally round it. The ParHament 
replied by denouncing as traitors all who gave as- 
sistance to the king. How Baltimore avoided being 
drawn into the whirlpool, we do not know; but that 
he did so avoid it is evident. The Arundels of 
Wardour, into which family he had married, were 
devoted royalists; and Lady Blanche Arundel, his 
wife's mother, lives in history for her heroic defense 
of Wardour Castle in 1643 against the Parliamentary 
army. Her husband was at Oxford with the king, 
and she had but twenty-five men for the defence, 
while the besieging force amounted to thirteen hun- 
dred ; but when summoned to surrender she replied 
that her husband had ordered her to hold it, and 
this she meant to do. The besiegers offered quar- 
ter for the women and children, but the offer was 
rejected with scorn. For six days and nights without 
intermission the artillery of the besiegers played on 
the castle, and it was only surrendered when two 
mines had been sprung and the place was no longer 
tenable. This heroic woman died in 1649 at the 
age of sixty-six. 

That Baltimore had any political relations with 
the royalist party, there is no evidence and little 
probability. The obligations of his charter compelled 
him to have relations with the king, as his colony 
was, as we have seen, dependent on the king only, 
and entirely independent of parliament. His com- 
munications with Charles on matters lying alto- 



128 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

gether outside of the subjects of controversy could 
hardly have been considered an offence, so long 
as the king was not held to have forfeited his crown. 
We find that Charles, on February 28th, 1643-44, 
issued a commission under the great seal to Leonard 
Calvert, empowering him to treat with the Virginia 
Assembly for laying certain export duties on mer- 
chandise, which customs, when established, should 
be leased to Baltimore on certain specified terms. 
Leonard is referred to in the Clarendon letters 
about this time as the king's commissioner; but 
the commission could never have gone into effect. 

Leonard, on a summons from his brother, had 
sailed for England in April, 1643, leaving Giles 
Brent as his deputy, with full powers. It looks much 
as if Baltimore, about this time, entertained thoughts 
of taking refuge in Maryland; for in March, 1643, he 
was cited before the Lords and placed under bonds 
not to leave the kingdom; showing, at all events, 
that some such purpose was suspected. 

In the following year, Leonard being still in 
England, one Richard Ingle, master of a trading 
vessel from London, came to Maryland and put into 
St. Mary's for a cargo. Ingle was a rampant parha- 
mentarian, given to treasonable vapouring on his 
own quarter-deck, and sworn information was laid 
before Brent that he had used such language as that 
" the king was no king ;" that he was " a captain 
for the Parliament against the king;" that "if he 
had Prince Rupert on board he would flog him 
at the capstan," and other swaggering words of the 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 129 

same sort, accompanied with flourishes of his cutlass 
and talk of cutting off heads. Ingle was a ruffianly 
braggadocio, but a serious issue was forced upon 
the Maryland authorities. To let him go his way in 
peace was to commit the province to the side of 
Parliament : to arrest him as a traitor was to com- 
mit it to the side of the king. The somewhat sin- 
gular proceedings that followed look very like an in- 
genious device to slip between the horns of the 
dilemma. Brent had him arrested and given into 
the custody of the sheriff, a guard put on board his 
ship, and a proclamation nailed to the mainmast. 
The sheriff, having, as he phrased it, " no prison but 
his own hands," was in some perplexity how to dis- 
pose of his prisoner, when Cornwaleys and another 
councillor, Mr. Neale, came and took Ingle with 
them on board his ship, where, saying " all is peace," 
they withdrew the guard, and Ingle at once took 
command and sailed triumphantly out of the harbour 
without waiting for his clearance. The attorney- 
general laid an indictment before the grand jury, 
which they ignored. For their proceedings in this 
affair Cornwaleys was fined and Neale temporarily 
suspended from the council. And in this way the 
authorities probably flattered themselves that they 
had slipped out of a ticklish business. A few days 
later Cornwaleys went on board Ingle's ship when 
it was lying in St. George's River, and departed for 
England. 

When Governor Calvert came back in 1644, trou- 
ble was brewing in the province. Claiborne had 
9 



I30 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT, 



been making secret visits to Kent Island, and doing 
his best to stir up insurrection. As the islanders 
had all been peaceably confirmed in their holdings, 
it was idle to tell them that a tyrannical popish gov- 
ernment was going to turn them out of their land ; 
and in the controversy between king and Parlia- 
ment, they were inclined to take the king's side. 
But these trifles were nothing to a man of Claiborne's 
fertility of resource : he assured them that he was 
acting by the king's orders, and even produced a 
parchment which he averred to be a royal commis- 
sion to himself, empowering him to seize the gov- 
ernment of Maryland, He mustered the fighting 
population, and proposed that they should attack 
Mr. Brent's house on the island, which he coveted 
for himself. But the islanders, doubting his state- 
ments and justly skeptical about the commission, 
dispersed ; whereupon he sailed back to Virginia. 

This was about Christmas, 1644, but in February 
Ingle came back with a band of marauders and 
seized St. Mary's, Govej-nor Calvert being at that 
time in Virginia. For two years he and his gang, 
with such lawless persons as they could get to join 
them, had possession of the southern part of the 
province. The loss of the records, or the fact that 
none were kept in this time of anarchy, leaves us 
much in the dark as to what was done in these dis- 
tracted years ; but from later evidence it is clear that 
they made no attempt to form a regular government, 
but devoted themselves to mere brigandage, pillag- 
ing houses and plantations and carrying off every- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 131 

thing they could lay their hands on, even to the 
irons of mills, locks of doors, and glass of windows. 
The missionary stations were broken up, and the 
venerable Father White and Father Fisher sent pris- 
oners to England. 

Cornwaleys, who had rendered such good service 
to Ingle in getting him and his ship out of the sher- 
iff's hands, met with but a shabby return, for Ingle 
plundered his plantation, killed his cattle, and car- 
ried off his household goods and other property, 
damaging him to the extent of three thousand pounds 
sterling, all which booty he carried off to England. 
Here Cornwaleys had him arrested and imprisoned, 
and Ingle petitioned Parliament for relief, averring 
that he had plundered nobody but papists and ma- 
lignants, and pointing out that it would be a great 
discouragement to the cause if the well-affected were 
not to be free to plunder papists and malignants 
without running the risk of suits for damages. 

Similar proceedings went on in Kent Island, under 
the instigation of Claiborne. He came over from 
Virginia with a force, took possession of Mr. Brent's 
house, and mustering the islanders in a field, proposed 
that they should go down and seize St. Mary's. 
They asked to see his authority, and as he had none 
to show, they refused to budge. He urged them to 
go down with his cousin Tompson, saying that he 
himself would go back to Virginia and send them 
reinforcements ; but nothing would move them. On 
the whole, it seems most likely that Claiborne him- 
self took no hand in the rough work that went on, 



132 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 



his policy being rather to stir up strife and then to 
get out of the way, leaving others to do the fighting ; 
but his friends^ acting in his name, plundered Kent 
as Ingle plundered St. Mary's, and no doubt he re- 
ceived much more than Mr. Brent's house as his 
share of the plunder. 

Though Governor Berkeley, Maryland's friend, 
was at this time in England, there seems to be no 
evidence that the Virginians had any hand in Ingle's 
maraudings ; and it is pretty plain that they disap- 
proved of him as a Roundhead, and were displeased 
at Claiborne's real or supposed alliance with him, 
for after these proceedings Claiborne's name is 
dropped from the roll of councillors. 

One fact must be borne in mind as a key to many 
of these complications. There were two causes, 
both dear to the hearts of most Virginians, and these 
causes did not always run parallel ; and there was a 
fixed determination which often worked at cross- 
purposes to the other two. One cause was that of 
the King or the royalists as against Parliament ; and 
from this point of view the Bennett faction, to which 
Claiborne now seemed disposed to attach himself, 
were rebels and traitors. But then there was the 
cause of Virginia against Maryland, and the rancour 
of Protestant against Papist, and from this point of 
view the enemies of Maryland and of Baltimore 
were the champions of Virginia. Then there was 
the fixed determination never to come again under 
the rule of the old Virginia Company, always striving 
to have its charter renewed. These men in England, 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



"^ZZ 



seeing the drift of things, had taken the Parhamen- 
tary side, and were now urging that to take Virginia 
out of the King's hand would inflict a heavy blow 
upon the royal cause. As their success would have 
been fatal to Maryland, Baltimore was constantly 
exerting all his influence to defeat their purposes, 
and in this respect was the powerful ally of the Vir- 
ginians. Shifting circumstances brought now one, 
now another of these aspects more prominently into 
view, and the attitude and conduct of the actors 
varied accordingly. 

Baltimore, in 1646, sent out a power of attorney 
to his brother, whom he designates simply as Leon- 
ard Calvert, Esq., and to Secretary Lewger to collect 
his rents and all debts due him. Historians have 
hitherto looked upon this as evidence that Baltimore 
considered his province as lost, and was merely 
anxious to save what he could out of the general 
wreck. But it by no means of necessity bears this 
interpretation. There are no instructions in it to 
sell any of his live stock or other property, or to re- 
mit all funds to England; but simply to collect, 
give receipts, and, if necessary, sue in his name, 
and to retain the amounts collected, to be disposed 
of as he should, from time to time, direct. His pre- 
vious instructions to his brother had been directed to 
him in his capacity of governor. The fact that 
Leonard was now no longer governor de facto., and 
was no doubt looked upon by many as finally ousted 
from that oflice, might have been used to avoid pay- 
ment of debts by those who doubted either the efii- 



134 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

ciency of his powers or the validity of his receipt. 
So Baltimore declares that he will recognize all such 
receipts as valid. 

As there was no recognized authority in the pro- 
vince, Calvert, while still in Virginia, gave a com- 
mission to Edward Hill, a Virginian, to act as his 
deputy, and on his arrival he was elected by the 
council, called an assembly of Protestants, and 
seems to have done something toward restoring or- 
der and preserving the province for the proprietary. 

Calvert, however, in Virginia had found a good 
friend in that stout royalist Sir William Berkeley, 
who, notwithstanding the battle of Naseby in the 
previous year had ruined the prospects of the royal 
cause, still held that province for the king. He 
gathered his friends together, suddenly returned to 
St. Mary's in the winter of 1646-47 with an armed 
force, and took possession of the government, ap- 
parently without resistance. Kent also submitted, 
and a general pardon was proclaimed. Thus the 
proprietary government was restored and the whole 
province pacified. The assembly called by Hill 
was continued in session by Calvert. 

A few months later, on June 9th, 1647, Governor 
Leonard Calvert died. On his death-bed he ap- 
pointed Thomas Greene, a Cathohc and royalist, as 
his successor, and left his kinswoman, Mistress Mar- 
garet Brent, as his executrix. He had pledged his 
own and his brother's estates to pay the soldiers 
who had helped him to recover the province, and 
as this payment was delayed by his death, the sol- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 13^5 

diers grew mutinous, and troutfle might have fol- 
lowed had not Mrs. Brent sold enough of Balti- 
more's cattle to satisfy their claims. 

As one of the charges continually brought against 
Maryland was that it was a popish province, ruled 
by Papists, where the Protestants (though largely 
outnumbering the Catholics) lived in terror and op- 
pression, the proprietary removed Greene and re- 
placed him by William Stone, a Protestant well 
affected to the Parliament. At the same time he 
reconstructed the council so as to give the Protes- 
tants a majority. As the whole control of the gov- 
ernment had now passed into Protestant hands, he 
sent out new oaths of office for the governor and 
councillors, binding them to molest or discounte- 
nance no one, and in especial no Roman Catholic, 
on account of his religion. 

As the great seal of the province had been lost or 
stolen in " the plundering time," as Ingle's anarchy 
was called, the proprietary sent out a new one, of 
massive silver, like the former. It bore the Calvert 
and Crossland arms, quarterly, surmounted by the cap 
or coronet of a count palatine and above this the 
Calvert crest. The supporters were a farmer and 
fisherman, and beneath, on a scroll, was the Calvert 
motto, Fatti Maschij Parole Femine. Behind was a 
mantle, and surrounding all the legend Scufo BoncR 
Voluntatis Tu(^ Coroiiasti Nos (Ps. V. 12, Vulgate). 
This device is to this day the seal and symbol of 
Maryland. On the other side was the effigy of the 
proprietary on horseback and in full armour, sur- 



136 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

rounded by a legend bearing his name and titles : 
Ccecilius Absolutus Do7ninus Terrce Marice et Avalo- 
nice^ Baro de Baltimore. 

During all this time Baltimore seems to have 
warily kept clear of the political strife in England. 
One curious anecdote relating to him is found in 
the autobiography of Alice Thornton, and we give it 
for what it is worth. The day before the execution 
of Charles I., it is said Mr. Rushworth asked her 
uncle to let him have the private use of a large room 
for that day for himself and certain friends, which 
was granted. FeeHng some curiosity as to the purpose 
of this secret conclave, he watched the persons who 
entered and recognized, among others, Lord Balti- 
more and Lilly, the almanac maker, "and others 
suspected to be papists and fanatics, which strange 
mixture did much surprise him/^ Asking Mr. Rush- 
worth about it a few days later, he was told that the 
assemblage was "the close committee" met to con- 
sult about the king's execution, and that he and 
another were sent to the king in prison to entreat 
him to recede from his persistent protestation of his 
innocence, and acknowledge himself to have been 
to some extent at fault, in which case those from 
whom they came would save his life and replace him 
on his throne. The king, however, was firm ; de- 
clared that he could not do this without wrong to 
his honour, his cause, and his conscience ; and " if 
he could not have his life but upon such base com- 
pliance, he was content to die." The messengers 
then sadly left him to his fate. 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 



137 



CHAPTER VIII. 

In the year 1649 the Maryland Assembly passed 
the famous Act concerning Religion, or Act of Tol- 
eration as it is often called, which enforced by 
statute what had been, as we have seen, the policy 
of Maryland from its foundation. Some of its 
phrases clearly show the presence of a puritan ele- 
ment in the assembly. It provides penalties for the 
profanation of " the Sabbath, or Lord's day, called 
Sunday," for blasphemy against any Person of the 
Trinity, and for reproachful speeches against the 
Virgin Mary, Apostles, and Evangelists. It also 
punishes all who shall call others by reviling names 
on account of religious differences, as Puritan, 
Jesuit, Papist, etc. ; and " the better to preserve 
mutual love and amity among the inhabitants," no 
person professing belief in Jesus Christ shall be " in 
any ways troubled, molested, nor discountenanced 
for or in respect of his or her religion, nor in the 
free exercise thereof." It is evident that this act was 
a compromise between Providence and St. Mary's, 
or the Puritan and Catholic parties. What it would 
have been had the Catholics been unrestricted, we 
cannot say; what it would have been in an assem- 
bly of Puritans is not left to conjecture, as we have 
the thing itself in the act of 1654. 



138 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

These Puritans were mostly new-comers. As 
early as 16 19 there had been a small company of 
that sect in Virginia, where they were by no means 
looked upon with favour. At the time of Berkeley's 
arrival there was a congregation, probably in Nan- 
semond county, who had been supplied with ministers 
from Boston; and these schismatics Berkeley and 
the council determined to root out. In 1643 the 
Assembly decreed that all who would not conform 
to the Church of England should be expelled from 
the colony. Claiborne at this time was a leader of 
the royalist party; his name stands at the head of 
the council, and as a special mark of the King's 
favour he had been appointed Treasurer for life. 
The council eagerly set about carrying out the edict. 
The pastors, Durand and Harrison, were forced to 
flee, and the congregation had to make the choice 
of imprisonment or exile. Some went to join their 
brethren in New England ; others, while evading the 
law by secret meetings, turned their eyes toward 
that home of the persecuted — Maryland. About 1648 
a number of them applied to Governor Stone, stating 
their situation and soliciting admission. Their peti- 
tion was favourably received ; the conditions of plan- 
tation were explained to them, by which nothing was 
demanded of them but fidelity to the proprietary, 
submission to the civil law, and the usual quit-rents. 
Absolute liberty of conscience was assured them, 
with the right to choose their own officers and hold 
their own courts ; and a whole county of the most 
fertile and pleasantly situated land in the province 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



139 



was placed at their disposal. They joyfully em- 
braced the offer, took up lands on the Severn, and 
with overflowing hearts named their new home Prov- 
idence. The next year this settlement was erected 
into a county, called Anne Arundel after Lady Bal- 
timore. 

Here they dwelt in peace and prosperity, and 
their numbers rapidly increased. But they soon 
found that they were not as happy as they thought 
they would be. While joyfully accepting freedom 
of worship for themselves, they overlooked the fact 
that their neighbours, of a different way of thinking, 
had freedom of worship also. In coming under a 
government that granted them all they asked, they 
were left without a grievance or ground for disaffec- 
tion. 

Such grounds were soon found. They were hardly 
well warm in their new abodes, when they began 
raising difficulties about the terms under which they 
held them, alleging scruples of conscience to this 
and to that, and in particular to the oath of fidelity 
— though really that seems an over-niceness, since 
no scruple, apparently, intervened to prevent their 
breaking it when taken. The fact also that the 
government which they had agreed to support was 
bound not to molest Roman Catholics, caused them 
many searchings of heart lest they should be incur- 
ring the guilt of permission. Singularly enough, the 
simple remedy of abandoning lands which they could 
not hold with an easy conscience seems not to have 
occurred to them. 



I40 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

In 1649 Governor Stone left the province on a 
temporary absence, leaving as h's deputy the late 
governor, Greene, who signalized his brief interim 
by a remarkable act of folly. After the execution 
of Charles I., on the previous January, the Com- 
mons had passed an ordinance declaring it treason 
to say that his son was king. Greene seized his 
opportunity, and on November 15th proclaimed 
Charles II., with the accompaniments of public re- 
joicing and a general pardon. Stone quickly came 
back and displaced Greene, but the act was not 
forgotten. 

Matters now looked ominous for the province. 
Ingle was besieging Parliament with petitions, com- 
plaints, and charges; Claiborne was loud in his 
boasts that the charter would be annulled and he 
would have Kent Island; the Indians to the north 
were threatening, as they always were when Clai' 
borne was busy ; the enemies in Virginia were full of 
hope ; the malcontents of the Severn, though in the 
assembly they passed an act thanking the proprie- 
tary for the beneficence of his rule, acknowledging, 
with strong expressions of gratitude, the peace and 
happiness they enjoyed, recognizing his title and 
pledging themselves to defend it " to the last drop 
of their blood," were waiting for a favourable oppor- 
tunity to renounce and overthrow it. 

The mode of attack was now somewhat changed. 
It was represented that Maryland was entirely under 
the control of papists, and that Protestants had no 
security fgr their religion, and were groaning under 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 141 

popish tyranny. This in face of the fact that the 
Catholics were but a small minority in the province,* 
and that the governor and a majority of both the 
council and the lower house were Protestants. To 
answer this charge, a declaration was drawn up and 
signed by the governor, the Protestant members of 
the council and lower house, including those from 
Providence, and by a number of the leading inhabit- 
ants, all Protestants, to the effect that none of them 
were in any way troubled or molested on account 
of their religion, in which they were protected by 
both the law of the land and the strict injunctions 
of the proprietary. 

As if to add a comic element to these serious 
matters, Charles II., then a fugitive in the island of 
Jersey, was pleased to take umbrage at the fact that 
the Puritans from Virginia had found an asylum in 
Maryland; and on February i6th, 1649-50, gave a 
commission to the poet Sir WiUiam Davenant to 
proceed to Maryland, dispossess the proprietary, 
and take the government himself, justifying this 
summary action on the ground that Baltimore " doth 
visibly adhere to the rebels of England, and admit 
all kind of schismatics and sectaries and other ill- 
affected persons into the said plantation of Mary- 
land." 

What gallant deeds that knight would have 

* What was the exact proportion of Protestants to Catholics at this time, 
we have no means of knowing. Charles, Lord Baltimore, reported to the 
Privy Council in 1677 that three-fourths of the population were Protestant 
non-conformists, the remaining fourth being Churchmen and Catholics. A 
little later we find the Catholics estimated at one-twelfth of the population. 



142 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

achieved had he crossed the Atlantic, the world will 
never know : he was captured by a Parliament ship 
and thrown into prison, from which he barely es- 
caped with life. This commission, however, stood 
Baltimore in good stead when his case was before a 
parhamentary committee in 1652. 

Parliament now resolved to reduce to obedience 
Barbadoes and Virginia, where royalist sentiments 
still prevailed. Although in this ordinance Mary- 
land, where there was certainly no open opposition 
to the Parhament, was not named, yet there was 
wide-spread apprehension at St. Mary's and hope 
at Providence that she would be included in its 
operation. Indeed, the settlers on the Severn were 
so sanguine that they refused to send burgesses to 
the assembly of 1650-51; an act tantamount to 
open rebellion against the proprietary, whose rights 
they had pledged themselves, one year before, to 
defend, if necessary, with their blood. Baltimore, 
on hearing of this, directed Stone to exert his au- 
thority to punish such contumacy if repeated, after 
due warning given. 

In May, 1 651, the parliamentary fleet intended for 
the reduction of Barbadoes and Virginia was getting 
ready for sea. Baltimore had great difficulty in pre- 
venting the name of Maryland from being inserted 
in the commission, as his enemies used Greene's 
proclamation with telling effect. In fact it had been 
so inserted; but he showed that the offensive act 
was the doing, not of his governor, but of a tem- 
porary substitute ; that Stone was well known as a 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 143 

friend of Parliament; he proved by unimpeachable 
Protestant testimony that non-conformists were un- 
molested in Maryland, that many had sought and 
found a refuge there from persecution in Virginia, 
and that the late king^s son had used this very fact 
^as a pretext for attempting to deprive him of his 
province. The committee were satisfied, and or- 
dered that the name of Maryland should be stricken 
out of the instructions. His enemies then, relying 
upon the imperfect geographical knowledge of the 
committee, contrived to have the phrase, " the plan- 
tations within the Bay of Chesapeake" inserted, 
which would serve their purpose as well. 

The vessels intended for Virginia— or rather one 
of them, for one, bearing Dennis and Stagg, the chief 
commissioners, was lost by the way— after many 
delays, arrived at Jamestown in March, 1652, and 
Berkeley surrendered. He was wise enough to know 
that continued resistance was impossible ; while, on 
the other hand, Curtis, the surviving commissioner, 
was conscious of a weakness in his position. The 
two chief commissioners were lost and their commis- 
sion with them; and what Curtis had was only a 
copy, which Berkeley might lawfully have declined 
to obey until he could communicate with England. 

Claiborne was now in his glory. He had been 
royalist and parUamentarian, churchman and non- 
conformist, as suited his interest at the time, and we 
now find him an avowed Puritan and one of the 
commissioners. "A man," to use Carlyle's apolo- 
getic phrase for one of his heroes, who " advances 



144 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

Spirally; face now to east, now to west, with his 
own private aim sun-clear to him all the time." He 
was firmly loyal to success, whatever flag it might 

fly- _ . 

The commissioners, Curtis, Bennett, and Claiborne, 
having settled the government of Virginia, next pro- 
ceeded to Maryland, where they demanded from 
Governor Stone recognition of their powers and sub- 
mission to their authority. Stone demurring, they 
declared all commissions void and all offices vacant, 
and placed the government in the hands of six com- 
missioners. All writs and processes were now to 
run in the name of the Keepers of the Liberties of 
England ; all officers and electors were to take the 
engagement of fidelity to the commonwealth, and 
this was to be in force until the Council of State in 
England had been heard from. 

The proprietary rule was thus completely over- 
thrown. Claiborne went back to Virginia, where he 
received the position of Secretary of State, the sec- 
ond office in the province, his fellow-commissioner, 
Richard Bennett, reserving that of Governor for him- 
self. 

In June Bennett and Claiborne remodelled the 
government of Maryland. As there was nothing 
objectionable against Stone, and as there was, as 
they admitted, a strong desire among the inhabi- 
tants to see him reinstated, he was replaced as gov- 
ernor, under the excuse that he had been " left out 
upon some misunderstanding; " and he resumed the 
office with the understanding that he reserved his 



GEORGE AND CE CI LI US CALVERT. 145 

fidelity to the proprietary until the higher powers 
in England had been heard from. As in their pro- 
clamation of the settlement it had been declared to 
be merely provisional until approved by the Council 
of State, this proviso could not reasonably be ob- 
jected to. As, moreover, their only authority was a 
copy of a lost commission which had never reached 
them, as the name of Maryland did not appear in 
the commissioners' instructions, and as Maryland 
had not denied or opposed the authority of ParHa- 
ment, it might well be doubted whether that body 
would sanction such arbitrary doings. 

Matthews had been sent to London as a commis- 
sioner from Virginia to obtain a ratification from 
Parliament of the settlement there. In these arti- 
cles they had inserted a condition that Virginia 
should be restored to its ancient boundaries before 
the creation of the province of Maryland ; in other 
words, that Maryland should cease to exist. The 
committee who had the matter under consideration 
saw the injustice of this demand, and refused to be 
hurried to a decision. Baltimore laid before them 
a memorial called Reasons of State concerning 
Maryland, in which he points out the impolicy of 
uniting the two provinces. These were, in brief, 
that in case of any defection in the one, the other 
might continue faithful; that it was better to en- 
courage emulation between them ; that the fact that 
Baltimore had an estate and residence in England 
made him, as it were, a hostage for the good beha- 
viour of his province ; that it was well known that he 



146 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

had ordered his officers to acknowledge the author- 
ity of Parliament when all the other plantations, ex- 
cept New England, held out against it, and had 
sheltered the friends of the Commonwealth when 
obhged to flee from Virginia; and to deprive him 
of his province under these circumstances would 
certainly be a discouragement to other plantations 
in a similar exigency. Whether these reasons or 
others prevailed, the demand of the Virginians was 
not granted and the charter left unimpeached. 

Cromwell was now Lord Protector, and his voice 
was all-potent in these matters. He announced his 
intention to settle all disputes between Baltimore 
and the commissioners with justice and equity so 
soon as he should have been informed thoroughly 
of the case; and he admonished Bennett and the 
rest, until his further pleasure should be known, to 
cherish love, concern themselves about religion, and 
diligently intend the public peace. Their commis- 
sions ran in the name of the Keepers of the Liber- 
ties of England; but the Keepers had vanished on 
that memorable 20th of April when the stern 
Protector — 

*' — wept and swore, 
Turned out the members and made fast the door; 
Ridding the house of every knave and drone, 
Forced — though it grieved his soul — to rule alone." 

And with the Keepers had vanished all authority de- 
rived from them or running in their name. Balti- 
more felt sure enough of his cause to order Stone to 
replace the government on its old footing, and to 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 147 

administer the oath of fideUty. Stone also pro- 
claimed the Protectorate in the proprietary's name. 

These proceedings did not suit Bennett and Clai- 
borne, so they proceeded into Maryland "to root 
out the papists." They were supported, of course, 
by the settlers on the Severn, and had an interview 
with Stone, who, to avoid bloodshed, resigned his 
powers, under protest, until the Protector's pleasure 
should be known. They then appointed a commis- 
sion of their friends, with Captain William Fuller at 
their head, to administer the affairs of Maryland, 
and empowered them to summon an assembly, to 
which no Roman Catholic was to be admitted. 

The assembly, thus purged, met in October, and 
almost their first action was to pass "An Act con- 
cerning Religion," of which this is the text: 

" It is enacted and declared in the name of his 
Highness the Lord Protector, with the consent and 
by the authority of the present General Assembly, 
that none who profess and exercise the Popish 
religion, commonly known by the name of the Ro- 
man CathoHc religion, can be protected in this Prov- 
ince by the laws of England formerly established 
and yet unrepealed, nor by the government of the 
Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland 
and the dominions thereto belonging, pubHshed by 
his Highness the Lord Protector, but are to be re- 
strained from the exercise thereof. 

" Such as profess faith in God by Jesus Christ 
(though differing in judgment from the doctrine, 



148 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

worship and discipline publicly held forth) shall not 
be restrained from, but shall be protected in the 
profession of the faith and exercise of their religion, 
so as they abuse not this liberty to the injury of 
others, or the disturbance of the public peace on 
their part. Provided that this liberty be not extended 
to popery or prelacy, nor to such as under the pro- 
fession of Christ hold forth and practise licentious- 
ness." 

Cromwell was by no means satisfied when he 
heard of these doings. The commissioners had con- 
cerned themselves less with love, justice, and the 
public peace and more with religion than he had 
intended. His wise policy, for the provinces as 
well as for England, was to promote peace, good- 
will, and content with his government as now estab- 
lished. He was drawing further and further from 
the independents and the fanatical wing of his party. 
In his memorable speech of September 24th, he 
had pleaded earnestly for liberty of conscience. 
" Liberty of conscience," he there says, " is a natu- 
ral right ; and he that would have it ought to give 
it. . . . This, I say, is a fundamental." With 
this feeUng we can see how he must have been irri- 
tated with Bennett and the rest kindling the flames 
of persecution anew. 

In January, 1654-55, he addressed the following 
letter to Bennett: 

" Whereas the differences between the Lord Balti- 
more and the inhabitants of Virginia concerning the 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 149 

bounds by them respectively claimed, are depending 
before our Council and yet undetermined; and 
whereas we are credibly informed you have notwith- 
standing gone into his plantation in Maryland and 
countenanced some people there in opposing the 
Lord Baltimore's officers, whereby, and with other 
forces from Virginia, you have much disturbed that 
colony and people, to the endangering of tumults 
and much bloodshed there, if not timely prevented: 
" We, therefore, at the request of the Lord Balti- 
more, and of divers other persons of quality here, 
who are engaged by great adventures in his interest, 
do for preventing of disturbances or tumults there, 
will and require you and all others deriving any au- 
thority from you, to forbear disturbing the Lord 
Baltimore, or his officers or people in Maryland; 
and to permit all things to remain as they were be- 
fore any disturbance or alteration made by you, or 
by any other upon pretense of authority from you, 
till the said differences above mentioned be de- 
termined by us here, and we give farther order 
therein.'' 

This letter, at a stroke, undid all Bennett's and 
Claiborne's laborious work. It commanded them 
to restore all things to the old standing, and leave 
the proprietary and his officers undisturbed, until 
the rights of the matter were fully understood in 
England. Baltimore was evidently informed of the 
Protector's intentions, for even before this letter was 
written he had sent a letter to Stone censuring him 



150 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

for submitting without resistance, and ordering him 
to resume the government once more. 

Stone at once reorganized the government. 
The new commissioners had fixed their seat of gov- 
ernment at Patuxent, and he sent an officer thither, 
who went, as he reports, " unarmed amid those sons 
of thunder," and despite their threats, brought off 
the records of the province in triumph. 

He next proceeded to reduce the settlement at 
Providence. Having mustered a force of about a 
hundred and thirty men, he moved northward from 
St. Mary's, part of his forces marching by the bay 
shore, and part being transported in small vessels. 
Fuller and the commissioners who were now at 
Providence became alarmed when they heard of 
Stone's approach, and sent messengers with pro- 
posals to acknowledge him as governor and submit 
to his government, provided they might have indem- 
nity for the past, and that such as chose might leave 
the province unmolested. 

It would have been better had Stone accepted 
this capitulation; but he thought himself strong 
enough to compel an unconditional surrender. De- 
taining the messengers, that they might not give the 
alarm, he kept on his way. The messengers, how- 
ever, escaped, and hastening with the news to Provi- 
dence, Fuller made preparations for defense. 

A surprise being now impossible, Stone sent two 
ambassadors in advance to assure Fuller's party of 
his pacific intentions; but as they made no definite 
proposals, no answer was returned. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 151 

There was lying in the harbour a large ship, the 
Golden Lyon, commanded by one Heamans; and 
as this vessel carried guns, Fuller summoned the 
captain, in the name of the Protector, to help in the 
defense, which Heamans was very wiUing to do. 

In the evening of March 24th, 1654-55, Stone's 
little fleet, on which he had now embarked his whole 
force, sailed up the Severn, and made its appearance 
off Providence. When they came within gunshot of 
the Golden Lyon, the gunner fired a shot at them, 
upon which they sheered out of range, and made 
their way to a point of land, where they disembarked 
and drew up in military array, with drums beating, 
and the black-and -gold ensign of Maryland dis- 
played in front. 

Heamans was now joined by a New England ship, 
also armed, and both opened fire upon Stone's party, 
kiUing one man and throwing them into some con- 
fusion. In the mean time Fuller, with a force of a 
hundred and seventy men, had crossed the river 
about six miles higher up, and making a circuitous 
march, appeared on the flank and rear of Stone's 
party, marching under the flag of the Common- 
wealth.* The word was given on each side: " God 
is our strength," being that of Fuller's men, and 
" Hey for Saint Mary's " that of Stone's party. 

The engagement was brief: the Marylanders, out- 
numbered and outgeneralled, gave way and fled, 

* The standard of the Commonwealth was, quarterly, ist and 4th, on a 
field argent, across gules, for England; 2d, on afield azure, a saltire (or 
St. Andrew's cross) argent, for Scotland; and 3d, on a field azure, a harp, 
or, for Ireland, 



152 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

with loss of a few killed and wounded. Many sur- 
rendered as prisoners on promise of quarter, and 
among the rest Stone himself, who had received a 
wound in the shoulder. 

A day or two later Fuller held a court-martial 
and condemned ten of his prisoners, Stone included, 
to death, notwithstanding his promise of quarter. 
He carried out this sentence by shooting in cold 
blood William Eltonhead, a member of the council, 
Captain William Lewis, John Leggatt, and John 
Pedro. He would, no doubt, have dealt out the 
same measure to the rest, but for the intercession of 
some good women of Providence and the remon- 
strances of his own soldiers, who were indignant at 
this wanton cruelty and breach of faith. 

The wounded governor was thrown into prison, 
and for some time not allowed to see, or even re- 
ceive a letter from, his wife ; and though they after- 
ward, as he seemed likely to recover, allowed his 
wife to nurse him, yet they sequestered his estate 
and those of the other wealthier men. 

Thus disastrously for Maryland ended the first 
land engagement within her borders. By display- 
ing the flag of the Commonwealth the victors had 
put Stone into the position of an armed rebel, al- 
though as good a friend of the Commonwealth as 
tliemselves, and thus gained a show of justification 
for their lawless proceedings. It was not to estab- 
lish the authority of Parliament or the Protector that 
they invaded a province where the one was ac- 
knowledged without question and the other had been 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 153 

publicly proclaimed, but to seize Maryland for Vir- 
ginia, and what property they could for themselves 
and their adherents. They now began to assume 
the rights of conquerors, sequestering estates, arming 
their friends, disarming those whom they chose to 
consider suspected, and consolidating their power as 
best they could. 

One drawback remained. The Protector, as we 
have seen, had written to them expHcitly in January 
not to disturb Baltimore's government or his officers, 
and leave all things as they were before the disturb- 
ances began. They did not dare openly to disobey 
him, but they might mystify him and keep him in 
the dark. Maryland was very far away, and Oliver's 
thoughts were fully occupied with matters of high 
importance very near at hand. The first Parliament 
under the Protectorate had been dissolved in ]zmx- 
^ry? 1655; an insurrection was smouldering under- 
ground throughout England and had to be stamped 
fiercely out ; England was districted and put under 
military rule ; the terrible massacre of the Protes- 
tants in PiedmoQt prevented the signature of a treaty 
with France ; a fleet was sent out to demand repa- 
ration from the dey of Tunis for the piracies of his 
subjects— in a word, the Protector could have had 
no time to think about what was doing in Maryland. 
So Bennett and Matthews, having ignored the Pro- 
tector's orders sent out in January, and worked 
their will in Maryland in defiance of them, wrote 
on June 29th to ask exactly what the orders meant, 
as if they had been anxiously pondering them the 



154 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

whole time. The Protector, we may be sure, re- 
ferred the matter to his council, where the Virginia 
commissioners had serviceable friends, and most 
likely they drafted the reply: 

"Whitehall, 26th September, 1655. 
" It seems by yours of the 29th of June and by 
the relation we received by Colonel Bennet, that 
some mistake or scruple hath arisen concerning the 
sense of our letters of the 12th of January last; as 
if by our letters we had intimated that we would 
have a stop put to the proceedings of those com- 
missioners who were authorized to settle the civil 
government of Maryland. Which was not at all in- 
tended by us ; nor so much as proposed to us by 
those who made addresses to us to obtain our said 
letter; but our intention (as our said letter doth 
plainly import) was only to prevent and forbid any 
force or violence to be offered by either of the 
plantations of Virginia or Maryland, from one to 
the other, upon the differences concerning their 
bounds ; the said differences being then under the 
consideration of Ourself and Council here, which, 
for your more full satisfaction, we have thought fit 
to signify to you ; and rest 

" Your loving friend 

Oliver P." 

If we compare this with the letter of January 12th, 
which it professes to explain, we cannot wonder that 
Carlyle calls this " a very obscure American trans- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 



155 



action." In fact, it is absolutely unintelligible ex- 
cept we assume that Cromwell relied upon others 
and signed what they drew up for him. Though his 
language is often cumbrous and obscure, it is not 
self-contradictory; and it is impossible that, after 
charging them to disturb nothing in Maryland, and 
to leave everything as it was before they meddled 
with it, he could have said that the plain import of 
that letter was that that should continue their pro- 
ceedings. 

Consistent or not, this letter would have suited 
the commissioners perfectly but for one thing, and 
that was the reminder that the whole matter was 
under consideration in England, where the question 
of right had yet to be determined. 

Baltimore, it would seem, had reason to expect 
that the decision of the referees, Whitlock and Wid- 
drington, commissioners of the great seal, would be 
in his favour, for he commissioned Josias Fendall as 
governor in Stone's place. Fendall had been active 
on his side in the late troubles, had commanded a 
party sent to seize some arms and ammunition at 
Patuxent, and had been imprisoned under Fuller's 
rule as a dangerous person. On receipt of his com- 
mission he was acknowledged at St. Mary's, while 
Fuller and his party still ruled at Providence. Both 
sides kept the peace while awaiting the decision 
from England. 

In 1656 the referees reported as to the matter of 
right to the Committee for Trade, to whom also Bal- 
timore's complaint against Bennett and Claiborne 



156 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

for the massacre at Providence had been referred, 
" under particular reference from his highness." It is 
evident that their report was altogether favourable to 
Baltimore, for on its receipt the Board of Trade or- 
dered Bennett and Matthews (then both in England) 
to make proposals for a settlement. It seems probable 
that the Protector gave them to understand what his 
will in the matter was, for their proposals were equiv- 
alent to a surrender. An agreement was drafted by 
virtue of which the proprietary government was to 
be restored, and Baltimore completely reinstated in 
his rights and authority, he engaging, on his part, 
not to bring any of the insurgents to justice in his 
courts, but to leave all offenses committed by them 
to be judged in England; to confirm titles of lands 
to such settlers on the Severn as had not taken the 
oath, on their taking a modified engagement of 
fidelity, and pledging himself never to assent to the 
repeal of the Toleration Act of 1649. With this un- 
derstanding Matthews, having been fully empowered 
by the Assembly, formally abandoned Virginia's 
claim and surrendered Maryland to Baltimore on 
November 30th, 1657. 

Articles drawn up in conformity with this agree- 
ment were laid before Fuller and his friends in March, 
1658, and accepted by them; Fendall's commission 
was read and a General Assembly summoned, and 
thus, after six years of trouble and civic dudgeon, 
Maryland passed again under the rule of her foun- 
der. 

Hostile critics have censured Baltimore as a time- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 157 

server because he adapted his poUcy to the emer- 
gencies of the time ; but there seems no sufficient 
ground for the charge. Which side should he have 
taken in that controversy? Should he have drawn 
the sword against a king who had been his own and 
his father's friend, and to whose bounty he owed 
his province? Should he, on the other hand, have 
helped Charles to overthrow the ancient hberties of 
England? Those were times when the wisest and 
best hesitated as to what was the call of duty. 

Baltimore's first duty was to his colonists who had 
trusted their lives and fortunes to him and to the 
safeguards of his charter. To commit Maryland to 
either side was to bring upon it probably civil war, 
and almost certain ruin if the adverse side suc- 
ceeded. His colonists also were divided in opinion. 
His clear duty was to shield them, if possible, sub- 
mitting to the logic of events. He recognized the 
rule of Parliament, the rule of Cromwell, and the 
rule of Charles H., as the will of the people of Eng- 
land, and he broke no obligation to either. It was 
not with Maryland as with an EngHsh county : Mary- 
land was a little kingdom in itself, owing no obedi- 
ence to ParUament and no service to the king ; and 
an attitude of neutrality, had that been possible to 
assume, would have been her true policy. Balti- 
more's temporizing policy was the nearest to this 
that circumstances would admit ; and it succeeded 
in saving Maryland. 

Had he become a partisan of the winning cause, 
had he used his influence to attack or injure his 



158 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

enemies, he might stand condemned with Claiborne ; 
but his memory is clear from that reproach. All 
that he asked from King, Parliament, or Protector 
was that his charter should be respected until he 
could be shown to have violated it. 

Upon recovering his government, Baltimore was 
not forgetful of those who had suffered for their 
fidelity to him. In his first instructions to the gov- 
ernor and council he charges them "that they do 
take special care of those widows who have lost 
their husbands in and by the occasion of the late 
troubles there, viz., Mrs. Hatton, Mrs. Lewis, and 
Mrs. Eltonhead, whom his Lordship would have 
his said lieutenant to cause to be suppHed out of 
such rents and other profits as are due to his Lord- 
ship, and can be got, for their present reHef and 
subsistence in a decent manner, in case they stand 
in need thereof; and that they let his Lordship know 
wherein he can do them any good there in recom- 
pense of their sufferings, of which his Lordship is 
very sensible; and that they assure them on his 
Lordship's behalf that he will continue his utmost 
endeavours, by soliciting his Highness [Cromwell] 
and Council, for the procuring of justice to be done 
them for the lives of their husbands, and satisfaction 
for their losses from those who have done them so 
great injuries, which he doubts not but will be at 
last obtained." 

The sequestered lands were restored, but the at- 
tempts to bring Fuller to justice in England came to 
nothing, if any were made. He kept in hiding, or 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 159 

went secretly about trying to foment another rebel- 
lion, so that a warrant for his apprehension was 
issued the next year. He eluded pursuit, however, 
and seems to have found friends among the Qua- 
kers ; at least if we can believe certain depositions 
made in 1664, the witnesses testifying that at a 
conclave of Quakers much sympathy was expressed 
for Fuller, and one, probably a new convert to the 
faith, declared that he could as freely fight to have 
him among them as he could have done " when he 
was one of the world." He was never called upon, 
however, to be guilty of this heinous backsliding, for 
from this time forth Fuller's name disappears from 
the records. 



i6o GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT 



CHAPTER IX. 

Fendall at first seemed zealous enough for the 
interests of the province and the proprietary. For 
one thing he organized the miHtia, districting the 
whole province, and appointing commanders for 
each district, to whom instructions were sent for 
due mustering and training of the whole fighting 
population. This had been very much neglected: 
several of the officers had died and not been re- 
placed; training-days were unattended; arms and 
ammunition were not looked after ; and hi case of a 
sudden alarm few knew the place of rendezvous, or 
were sure that there would be any officers to com- 
mand them if they assembled. Stone, in the affair 
at Providence, instead of summoning all the fight- 
ing men of the province, simply marched with the 
men of St. Mary's, as if it had been a squabble be- 
tween two counties. This was all now amended: 
there were two regiments organized, for the southern 
and northern halves of the province ; and these were 
made up of local companies, each having its proper 
officers and rendezvous. 

By the agreement with Bennett and Matthews a 
modified engagement of fidelity to the proprietary 
was drawn up, intended for the relief of those who 
had scruples about the former oath; and the gover- 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. i6i 

nor bestirred himself to have this taken, as the law 
prescribed, by all who took up lands or settled in 
the province. This gave rise to the only instance 
of persecution of Quakers under the proprietary 
rule, if indeed that may be called persecution 
which was inflicted, not for religious belief, but for 
open defiance of the law of the land. 

Certain missionaries of the sect had come in 1657 
from Virginia, where they were harshly treated, into 
Maryland, where they were unmolested, and be- 
gan to make converts. They were perfectly aware 
of what the law demanded of residents ; and had 
their aims been merely of a religious kind, they could 
have made proselytes, established societies, and 
visited them frequently, without any breach of law 
and without molestation from the civil authorities. 
This, however, did not suit them. Perhaps they 
thought that their testimony would be lacking in 
clearness unless they passed through the fires of per- 
secution; and as there were no penal statutes to 
defy, all that was left to them was to break the civil 
law. 

A year passed, and then, as it seemed that they 
were disposed to fix their residence in Maryland, 
they were called upon to take the engagement 
binding them, so long as they should remain in the 
province, to submit to the authority of the proprie- 
tary and his officers, and to take no part in any at- 
tempts to overthrow his government or impair his 
title. This they refused to do; and not content 
with this, persuaded some who had already taken it, 
II 



1 62 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

to disown and renounce it, alleging that " they were 
to be governed by God's law and the light within 
them, and not by man's law." For this they were 
ordered either to subscribe the engagement or de- 
part the province, Thomas Thurston, the leader of 
the sect, accordingy departed, but came back the 
next year more zealous than ever, dissuading the 
people from coming to the militia drills, from giving 
testimony in courts of justice, and generally from 
acknowledging any law or ordinance but their own 
interior illumination. For this an order was passed 
(apparently under the impression that he had fled) 
that if any of the " vagabond and idle persons known 
by the name of Quakers " presumed to come again 
into the province, they should be whipped from con- 
stable to constable until they were out of it. On this 
order Thurston was arrested ; but he pleaded that 
the ordinance did not apply to him, as he had not 
come into the province since its pubHcation, but 
was already in it at the time. This plea was al- 
lowed ; but he was banished under penalty of flog- 
ging if he remained or returned. He did, however, 
return ; and we find him living, certainly unflogged 
and apparently unmolested, in Anne Arundel in 
1664. No further action seems to have been taken 
on the order ; and there is no record that any Quaker 
suffered for his religion in Maryland.* 

The Dutch having made some settlements on the 

* A Thomas Thurston, " principal military officer in Baltimore County," 
was removed from his office and charged with disorderly conduct in 1692. 
If this was a son of the missionary, here was a sad falling-away. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 163 

Delaware after their conquest of the Swedes who 
had settled there in 1638, Baltimore sent orders to 
the governor to have his northern and eastern terri- 
tories surveyed, and all settlers upon them brought 
under his jurisdiction. The matter being laid be- 
fore the Maryland Council, it was ordered that Col. 
Nathaniel Utie, who lived on Spesutia Island, at the 
head of the Chesapeake, and who had had some in- 
tercourse with the Dutch, should proceed to the 
Delaware and give notice to the authorities and 
people there that they were in the province of Mary- 
land; which he did accordingly, to their no small 
discomposure. . 

When news of this was carried to Governor Stuy- 
vesant at New Amsterdam, he was furious, rated 
soundly the officers at Altona and New Amstel for 
letting Utie go about unmolested, and sent an armed 
force down to seize him. Before they came, how- 
ever, Utie had departed, after giving warning to the 
Dutch that they had not by any means heard the 
last of the business. 

Stuyvesant, after writing to Fendall to complain 
of Utie's proceedings, sent two ambassadors, Augus- 
tine Herman and Resolved Waldron, to visit Mary- 
land and see what could be done by negotiation. 
They were hospitably received by the governor and 
council, and after dinner the subject was broached, 
Stuyvesant's envoys urging the Dutch occupation 
of the New Netherlands, and the Marylanders re- 
sponding with the English grants, which fixed the 
northern boundary of Maryland at the southern limit 



1 64 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT, 

of New England. The Dutchmen naturally asked 
where, then, were the New Netherlands to come in? 
to which the Marylanders as naturally replied that 
they did not know. The English tracing back their 
title to Sir Walter Raleigh, the Dutchmen gravely 
responded that theirs went back, through Spain, to 
Columbus himself. Beyond pleasant politenesses, 
nothing came of the interview : each party remained 
firm, and the question was referred to the authorities 
in England and Holland. Baltimore instructed his 
agent in Holland to inquire of the Dutch West India 
Company if they would or would not admit his 
claims to lands on the Delaware. The company 
memorialized the States General, Baltimore took the 
precaution to obtain a confirmation of his patent 
from Charles II., and thus this matter rested for a 
while. 

It seemed to be the fate of Maryland never to be 
long at peace. When external foes ceased to trou- 
ble, she was vexed by internal faction. Fendall had 
been made governor for his unshaken fidelity to the 
proprietary and his firm attitude during the Bennett 
and Claiborne usurpation, and now he began to plot 
treason. 

There was always a disaffected element among the 
burgesses, or lower house, as they were now called, 
who were ready to join in any attack upon the pro- 
prietary's rights; and to check these malcontents 
and keep them within bounds, had been the duty of 
the governor and council, who were the sworn con- 
servators of Baltimore's rights. It would seem that 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 165 

Fendall entered into their schemes with the idea of 
making himself independent of the proprietary. 
The plan being all arranged, the first step was taken 
by the burgesses, who, on March 12th, 1660, sent a 
message to the governor and council declaring 
" that this Assembly of Burgesses, judging them- 
selves to be a lawful Assembly, without dependence 
on any other power in the Province now in being, 
is the highest court of judicature. And if any ob- 
jection can be made to the contrary, we should be 
glad to hear it." 

In other words, that they were the government, 
that the proprietary had no more political rights 
than any private citizen, and that the upper house 
had no share in legislation. 

The governor treated this treasonable demand as 
if it were a delicate and interesting question in 
casuistry. Before venturing to give an answer, he 
begged to be informed, first, whether the paper was 
intended for the governor and council as such, or 
for the same parties sitting as the upper house of 
the assembly; secondly, whether the lower house 
meant that they considered themselves a complete 
assembly without the governor and upper house; 
and thirdly, whether they considered themselves in- 
dependent of the proprietary. On these nice points 
there was a conference between the two houses. 

The next day the governor declared his opinion, 
which was that in all assemblies the proprietary had 
a right to be present in person or by deputy, and 
that as governor he had only power to confirm laws 



1 66 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

temporarily until the proprietary's assent or dissent 
were known. But that he did believe the king in 
his patent (which gave the initiative in laws to the 
proprietary) really meant that the burgesses should 
enact the laws and publish them in his lordship's 
name, which laws should be valid, whether he ap- 
proved them or not. In this opinion (which irresis- 
tibly reminds one of Lord Peter's views on the 
momentous question of the silver lace) two of the 
councillors concurred, one salving his conscience, 
however, by saying that he did so as a private man, 
and not as a member of the council, while the sec- 
retary, Philip Calvert, and two others dissented and 
protested. 

In the afternoon, the burgesses took another step. 
Headed by their speaker they proceeded to the 
upper house and notified them that they could not 
allow them to be an upper house at all ; but that 
they might take seats with them, if they liked, as part 
of an assembly of a single chamber. The secretary 
then reminded them that if the whole assembly sat 
in one house, the governor must be the presiding 
officer, and the speaker's office would be vacant; 
upon which they withdrew to deliberate upon that 
delicate point. 

The next day they proposed an arrangement: the 
two houses were to sit as one body, the governor 
to be the president and to have a vote in the pro- 
prietary's name; but they would reserve their 
speaker and assume the power of adjourning or dis- 
solving the assembly. To these terms Fendall 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 167 

agreed, the secretary and Councillor Brooke protest- 
ing and quitting the house. 

Next, to complete the revolution, Fendall surren- 
dered his commission to the lower house, and re- 
ceived a new commission from them, thus leaving 
the proprietary without a representative and without 
authority in his own province. The council now 
being reconstructed to their mind, to establish their 
rule, this assembly of a single house repealed all 
former acts, and made it felony to disturb the gov- 
ernment as they had settled it. 

Upon what support Fendall relied, since he knew 
these proceedings would be sternly called to account 
by Baltimore, we cannot tell. The leniency of the 
proprietary government, and the easiness of escape 
into Virginia, seem to have encouraged malcontents ; 
and there were several caves of Adullam in the prov- 
ince where the disaffected drew together. We know 
that he had the countenance of the leading spirits 
at Providence, the same who sat in the court-mar- 
tial that condemned and executed Eltonhead and 
the other prisoners, and whom Baltimore had en- 
gaged himself not to bring to justice in his courts for 
that murder. He may perhaps, not knowing the 
course things were taking in England, have hoped 
to be supported by Parliament. 

But this revolution was short-lived, even for 
Maryland. Baltimore, so soon as he heard of it, re- 
voked Fendall's commission, and appointed his half- 
brother, Secretary Phihp Calvert, governor in his 
place, instructing him to proceed against Fendall 



i68 GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 

and his accomplices either in the courts or by mar- 
tial law, as he should see fit. Fendall was on no 
account to be allowed to escape with life. Charles 
II., who had just been restored to the throne, also 
sent letters to the governor and council of Virginia, 
directing them to assist Calvert in re-establishing his 
government. 

Their aid was not necessary. The revolution col- 
lapsed at once. Fendall at first assumed a bold air, 
but finding himself unsupported, surrendered him- 
self and made his submission. The provincial 
court which tried him spared his life, but banished 
him from the Province and declared his estates 
forfeit. He petitioned the council for pardon, 
promising fidelity for the future, and his petition was 
granted to the extent that his sentence of banish- 
ment was revoked and his estates restored ; but he 
was disfranchised and declared incapable of holding 
office. With this Hght sentence he escaped, to plot 
treason again and be brought to trial again twenty 
years later. 

From this time forth the constitution of the as- 
sembly was fixed as it remained until the American 
Revolution. It was composed of two houses, the 
upper house being the appointees of the proprie- 
tary, and the lower house the elected representa- 
tives of the people. The electoral district was no 
longer the hundred, as in the earlier days of the 
colony, but the county ; and each county sent two 
or more burgesses. The right of appearing in per- 
son or by proxy had ceased some time before. 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 169 

When not sitting as an upper house, that body was 
the council or executive department, of whom the 
governor was president, and all matters of adminis- 
tration came before them. They were also the 
sworn guardians of the rights of the proprietary. 

Almost from its beginning the colony had suffered 
for want of a sufficient supply of money for domestic 
circulation, and various substitutes for a currency 
had been tried to some extent. The Indian shell- 
money, or "peak" as it was called, circulated freely 
with the savages, and was used to some extent by 
the colonists in their dealings with one another. It 
consisted of small cylindrical beads cut from the shell 
of the mussel or the clam, and was of two colors, 
purple and white, the purple being worth twice as 
much as the other. These beads were bored and 
strung on cords; and payments were computed in 
arm's-lengths or in fathoms of these strings. Some- 
times the strings were united into a flat band, and 
these were called " belts.^' " Roenoke " was an in- 
ferior kind of peak. In 1643 an arm's-length of 
roenoke was worth ten pounds of tobacco, and a 
pound of beaver was worth a hundred pounds. To- 
bacco, however, as the staple production of the 
province, soon became the universal circulating me- 
dium, with which all domestic debts were paid and 
in which all accounts were kept. Rents, salaries of 
officers, the public levy, judicial fines, were all in 
pounds of tobacco. In 1639 tobacco was worth 
three pence sterling per pound ; but over-production 
and the inferior quality of much which was forced 



lyo 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 



on the market brought about serious depreciation, 
while at all times the value of the currency, or its 
purchasing power, fluctuated with the prospects of 
the crops or the news from England. Thus for 
want of a stable medium of exchange, all business 
was carried on at a disadvantage. Attempts to hmit 
the production of tobacco were made again and 
again, but they did not remedy the evil. The to- 
bacco-growing colonies tried to agree upon a limita- 
tion of the time of planting; but the difference of 
seasons prevented an arrangement, and the English 
government looked with disfavour on the plan as 
likely to impair their revenues. Laws were, however, 
passed compelling the cultivation of corn; so that 
the province soon became an exporter of that cereal. 
Payments of considerable sums could be made by 
bills of sale, bills of lading, or the actual delivery 
of the hogsheads, but for small transactions this 
would not do; and the lack of a small currency 
caused great inconvenience and fostered a general 
system of credit-dealing which led to much litigation. 
To remedy this state of things Baltimore, at the re- 
quest of the colonists, proposed to provide a colonial 
currency. He had dies cut for shillings, sixpences, 
and groats, and forwarded specimens to Governor 
Fendall. To Secretary Phihp Calvert he wrote that 
if his coinage was acceptable to the colonists, he 
would supply all that was needed ; but that it was 
not to be forced upon the people, nor to go into use 
unless the assembly was willing to accept it and 
would pass a law giving it currency. 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 171 

Fendall's plot put a stop to further proceedings 
for the time, but after the reorganization of the gov- 
ernment the assembly passed resolutions to the 
effect that the proprietary be petitioned to set up a 
mint in the province, to coin silver equal to sterHng 
in fineness, the coins to be intrinsically worth not 
less than three-fourths of their nominal value. 
Their object seems to have been to have a token- 
currency which would be kept in the province. 

Baltimore then sent over a quantity of the Mary- 
land money, as it was called, and an act passed in 
1662 compelled each free householder to take ten 
shillings of it for each taxable person belonging to 
his household or in his service, at twopence per 
pound of tobacco. If this act was enforced, a very 
considerable sum, estimated by some as high as 
;!^2,5oo, must have been put into circulation at once. 
If this was so, it is difficult to understand why these 
coins are now so excessively rare. The act of 1661 
provided for their acceptance by the proprietary for 
rents and all other dues to him ; and though it does 
not expressly say at their nominal value, it can hardly 
have had any other meaning. The result then, ap- 
parently, must have been that this coinage went al- 
most entirely into the hands of the collectors, as 
there was no limitation of the quantity that might be 
tendered. But as the remittances to the proprie- 
tary were made in sterling bills, and these had to be 
purchased from the shippers or others who could 
draw on England, the coinage must still have stayed 
in the province. On the whole, it seems most likely 



172 GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 

that the act of 1662 went but very partially into 
effect, and that the coinage was soon discontinued ; 
and this view is supported by the letters of Charles 
Calvert in 1662-64, which, while giving minute par- 
ticulars of collections, disbursements, and remittances 
in bills and tobacco, make not the slightest allusion 
to the Maryland money. In fact, it was a bad piece 
of financiering every way. For average tobacco, 
owing to over-production, was only worth about a 
penny per pound in 1662; so that a quantity of 
Maryland money worth nominally ^£1,000 and in- 
trinsically ;^75o, if exchanged for tobacco at two- 
pence per pound under the act, would bring in but 
120,000 pounds, which would buy only ^^500 ster- 
ling exchange at par, leaving the proprietary ;^25o 
out of pocket by the transaction ; while on all sums 
subsequently received for rents or dues he must have 
lost twenty-five per cent. 

These coins, of which a few specimens are pre- 
served in museums, have on the obverse the propri- 
etary's effigy with his name and titles, and on the 
reverse the Calvert arms, surrounded by the legend 
Crescite et Multiplica7?iini. They were struck in Eng- 
land, no mint being set up in the province. The 
officers of the London mint laid information before 
the Privy Council, and an order was issued for ap- 
prehending Baltimore, softened, however, almost im- 
mediately into a simple request that he would ap- 
pear before the council. It would seem that his 
explanations were satisfactory, as the records have 
no further allusion to the matter. He could not 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT 



173 



have been liable to a charge of counterfeiting the 
coin of the realm, for the coins bore no resemblance 
to the coinage of England, nor were they used in 
England. There was also an opinion that his palat- 
ine authority gave him the right of coining money 
(or at least tokens) for his own province. It has 
been supposed by some, on the evidence of a coin 
or medal of doubtful authenticity, that George Cal- 
vert had struck a copper coinage for Avalon. 

In the latter part of i66t the proprietary sent out 
his only son and heir, Charles Calvert, as his gov- 
ernor, his uncle PhiHp being next to him as deputy. 
Things were quiet in the province: there were oc- 
casional troubles with the northern Indians, and the 
over-production of tobacco was a general grievance ; 
but on the whole the people prospered. 

We can catch but few glimpses of the proprietary 
at this time : he seems to have shunned publicity all 
his life and devoted himself to his private affairs 
and the business of his province. He was curious 
to get birds, animals, and other productions of Mary- 
land, which he had never visited, and we find allu- 
sions to these fancies of his scattered throughout his 
son^s correspondence. Charles regrets that he can- 
not send him elk calves and other deer and birds ; 
will send him hawks, but does not think them worth 
sending. Does send gifts of choice tobacco ; dried 
peaches of his wife's own preparation; will send 
cheese, if he can get some of Mistress Spry's mak- 
ing, but not otherwise ; and " little Cis " (his son 
CeciHus who died young) sends his grandfather two 



174 



GEORGE AND CECIL! US CALVERT. 



wild cat skins. Squirrels are also sent, and black 
walnut planks, out of which " a noble shovel-board 
table " was made. The father, in turn, sends him 
presents of plants, seeds, and vines ; books and an 
elaborate cabinet full of " fine contrivances ; " choice 
wine, and a cap, feather, sword, and belt for little 
Cis ; and, what was probably most prized of all, his 
mother's picture. Charles grieves at the news of his 
sister's death — Mrs. Blackstone, who died in 1663. 

Under the wise and equitable government of 
Charles Calvert the province prospered and discon- 
tents were allayed. In recognition of his services 
the assembly passed an Act of Gratitude, in which, 
" acknowledging the many benefits they receive by 
his care and soHcitude,'^ they confirm the tobacco 
duty to him, after his father's decease, for his natu- 
ral life. 

During the last years of his life Cecilius seems to 
have lived altogether in retirement, and few refer- 
ences to him, other than official, are to be found. 
Charles visited him occasionally, and the exchange 
of gifts and messages was kept up. 

On November 30th, 1675, Cecilius Calvert, the 
founder of Maryland, died at the age of sixty-nine. 
His life had been in many ways one of trial and anx- 
iety; he had passed through dangers and difficulties 
when far more than his own happiness and fortune 
was at stake, and by his patience, prudence, and 
moderation he had preserved safe his own rights and 
the franchises of his people. He had reaped but 
little advantage from his province ; he had had the 



GEORGE AND CECILIUS CALVERT. 175 

bitter experience of finding treachery where he had 
a right to look for fideHty, and ingratitude from 
those who owed their fortunes to him. 

Under his rule the little settlement of about three 
hundred colonists, sheltered in Indian wigwams at 
the mouth of the St. Mary's River, had increased to 
a community of between sixteen and twenty thou- 
sand souls, living "in ten counties, each of which was 
provided with a complete civil and military organiza- 
tion. Agriculture and commerce flourished, and all 
the necessary handicrafts were practised. The prin- 
ciple of rehgious toleration, which had been the 
policy of the colony from its foundation, and was 
never violated except when the proprietary govern- 
ment was in abeyance, had wrought good effects in 
liberalizing the people. Alsop, writing about 1660, 
expresses his admiration at beholding Protestants 
and Catholics living together in perfect amity. 
Even the occasional jealousies and jars between the 
colonists and the proprietary government bore some 
good fruit: they trained the people to be jealous of 
their rights, to watch the government with unceasing 
vigilance, to forestall a wrong before they felt its 
effects, and thus nurtured that "fierce spirit of lib- 
erty " which Burke, a hundred years later, fixed on 
as the characteristic quality of the American people. 



INDEX 



ACCOMAC, 48 

" Act concerning Religion ' (1649) 

Act concerning Religion" (1654), 
147 
Alexander, Sir William, 63 
Allen, Thomas, 72 
Altham, Rev. John, 45, 83, loi 
Altona, 163 

Anne Arundel County, 139 
Archihu, regent, 59 
" Ark " and " Dove." 22, 40, 58 
Arundel, Anne, Lady Baltimore.iiS 
Arundel, Lady Blanche, 127 
Arundel, Thomas, Earl of, 93, 113, 

127 
Assembly, Maryland : 

nature of, 83, 47 

rejects laws, 77, 86 

mode of voting, 84 

draws up code, loi, 102 

change in, 117 

rules of order, 118 

purged of Catholics, 147 

final form, 168 
Avalon, account of, 16, 18 

granted to Calvert, 17 

charter of, 17, 33 

visited by Calvert, 19 

disturbed by French, 20, 21 

climate of, ig, 24, 25 

seized by Kirke, 31 

restored to C. Calvert 32 

charter annulled, 32 

Bacon, Sir Francis, 16 
Baltimore, Lords. See Calvert 
Baltimore, manor of, u 
Barbadoes, 142 
Battle on the Pocomoke, 66 

on the Severn, 151 
Bayonne, 21 
Benediction (ship), 23 
Berkeley, Sir William, 126, 132, 134 



Berkshire, 83 
Bill of Rights, 102 
Blackstone, Mrs., 174 
Blount, Richard, Provincial of Jes- 
uits, TOO 
Bohemia, 5, 30 
Bolles, John, 51 
Bossincy, 4 

Boteler, John, rebeUious, 67 
arrested, 70 
condemned, 73 
.appointed to office, 82 
Brent, Giles, deputy governor, 128 
Brent, Margaret, 125, 134 
Brent, Mary, 125 
Buckingham, Duke of, 6, 7, ii, 12, 

19, 23 
Burgesses, how chosen, 83, 117 

declare themselves the Assem- 
bly, 165 

Calverd, Margareta, i 

Calvert, Anne (Mrs. Peaseley), 11, 

116, 123 
Calvert, Cecilius, Lord Baltimore : 

birth, 4 

enters Oxford, 87 

succeeds to title, 31 

receives charter of Mary land, 35 

plans of colonization, 39 

sends out Ark and Dove, 40 

difficulties, 40 

letter to Wentworth, 40 

charter confirmed, 44, 95, 164 

instructions to colonists, 46 

policy, 57, 98 

sends over laws, 76 

laws rejected, 77 

dissents t-o laws, 85 

waives the initiative in legis- 
lation, 87 

revenues, 92, 93 

toleration, 98 

consults Father Blount, 100 



178 



INDEX. 



Calvert, Cecilius, Lord Baltimore : 
difficulties with Jesuits, 103 
requests their removal, 109 
difficulties of position, 113 
consults Father More, 113 
arrangement with Jesuits, 115 
letter to Leonard, 119 
distrust of Jesuits, 120 
attitude in civil war, 128, 136, 

sends power of attorney to 
Leonard, 133 

anecdote of, 136 

memorial to Parliament, 145 

government restored, 156 

coins money, 170 

summoned before Council, 173 

gifts to his son, 174 

death, 174 
Calvert Charles, governor, 172, 173 
Calvert, Dorothy, 11 
Calvert, Elizabeth, 11 
Calvert, Francis, 11 
Calvert George, Lord Baltimore : 

lineage, i 

arms, 2 

birth and education, 3, 4 

in Parliament, 4, 8, 10, 12 

office in Ireland, 4, 5 

Clerk of Council, 5 

services to James L, 8, 9 

knighted, 6 

Secretary of State, 6 

character, 7, 9, 10 

approves Spanish marriage, 8, 
9, 10 

Commissioner of Treasury, 8 

pensions, 8 

mediator between King and 
Parliament, ^ 

grants of land in Ireland, 11 

death of wife, 11 

member of Council of York, 12 

failure of hopes, 12 

resigns office, 13 

avows the Catholic faith, 13 

raised to the Irish peerage, 13 

interest in colonies, 15 

grant of Avalon, 17 

visits Avalon, 18, 19 

letter to Buckingham, 19 

captures French ships, 21 

charge against, 23 

suffers from climate, 24, 25 

letter to King, 24 

asks grant in Virginia, 25 

visits Jamestown, 27 

refuses oath of supremacy, 27 

insulted at Jamestown, 27 

returns to England, 28 



Calvert, George, Lord Baltimore : 
letter to Wentworth, 29 
grant of land on the Chesa- 
peake, 30 
pamphlet on England's policy, 

30 
death, 31 
portrait of, 33 
Calvert, George (the younger), 11, 

39) 45 
Calvert, Grace, Lady Talbot, 11 
Calvert, Helen, 11 
Calvert, Henry, 11 
Calvert, Jaques, 2 
Calvert, John, 3 

Calvert, John (son of George), 11 
Calvert, Leonard, 2 
Calvert, Leonard, 11, 22, 23, loi 

governor, 39, 45, 46 

notice to Claiborne, 63 

takes Kent Island, 67 

letter to Baltimore, 67 

conference with Jesuits, 11 1 

censured by Baltimore, 119, 122 

royal commission to, 128 

displaced by Ingle's men, 130 

retakes St. Mary's, 134 

death, 134 
Calvert Levinus, 2 
Calvert, Philip, t66, 167, 173 
Capebroile, 20 
Carolana, 30 
Catchmayd, William, 93 
Catholics, persecution of, 39 

in first immigration, 45, loi 

ind'<cements to, 99 

hostility to, 100 

protection for, 135 

charges against, 140 

proportion to Protestants, 141 

proscribed, 147 
Cecil, Sir Robert, 3, 4 
Charles I. letter to Calvert, 25 

commission to Leonard Cal- 
vert, 126 
Charles II. proclaimed, 140 

commission to Davenant, 141 

confirms charter, 164 
Charter of Maryland, 35 

character of, 36 

attacks upon, 42, 94, 140 

confirmed, 4, 94, 164 
Chesapeake Bay, 30, 35, 48, 58, 94, 

143. 163 
Chester, earldom of, 36 
Chowan river, 30 

Churchmen subject to civil law, 103 
Claiborne, William, 43 

instructions about, 49 

account of, 62 



INDEX. 



179 



Claiborne, William ; 

post on Kent Island, 63 
pinnace seized, 64 
sends out expedition, 65 
surrenders to Evelin, 66 
attainted of felony, 74, 88 
hearing before Council, 94 
petition to Charles II., 96 
nature of his pretensions, 96 
stirs up rebellion, 130, 131 
Commissioner for Virginia, 144 
overthrows Maryland govern- 
ment, 144 
Secretary of State in Virginia, 
144 

Cloberry & Co., 50, 54, 63, 66 

Colonies, 15, 32, 33, 36 

Colonists, first, 40, 45 
religion of, 45 
instructions for, 46 

Conception Bay, 18, 21 

Conditions of plantation, no 

Copley, Thomas, 101, 104, 105 

Cornwaleys, Thomas, 45, 46, 76, 
78, 79, lOI 
commands expedition, 65 
goes to Kent Island, 68 
letter to Baltimore, 108 
releases Ingle, 129 
plantation plundered, 131 

Cottington, Viscount, 31 

Council, Maryland, 83, 135, 168 

Courts baron, no 

Cowes, Isle of Wight, 45 

Cox, William, 72 

Craford, 70, 71 

Cranfield, Sir Lionel, 8 

Cromwell, Oliver, 146 
proclaimed, 147 
letters to Commissioners, 148, 

^54 . . 
Crossland, Alicia, 3 
Currency, 169 
Curtis, Commissioner, 143 

DanbyWiske, 2 

Davenant, Sir William, 141 

De la Rade, Admiral, 20, 21 

Delaware river, 163, 164 

Dennis and Stagg, Commissioners, 

143 
Deodand, 92 
Dieppe, 20 
Duke of Parma, t2i 
Durham, Bishop of, 36 
Dutch on the Delaware, 162, 163,164 
Dutch West India Company, 164 

Elector Palatine, 7, 30 
Electoral districts, i68 



Eltonhead, William, 152 
Engagement of fidelity, 160 
Evelin, George, 66, 67, 68, 96 
Evelin, Robert, 83 
Expedition to Kent Islai d, 67 

Fearns, Capt., 21 

Fendall, Josias, governor, 155 

organizes militia, 160 

plots rebellion, 164 

arrested and sentenced, 168 
Ferryland, 16 
Fleete, Henry, 59 
Freemen, 8g 

French descent on Avalon, 20 
French ships taken, 21 
Fuller, William, acting governor, 
147 

surrenders government, 156 

warrant against, 159 

Gilbert, Sir Humphrey, 16 

Gondomar, Count, 10 

Grand Lake of Canada, 94 

Gravesend, 40, 41 

Great Seal of Maryland, 135 

Greene, Thomas, governor, 134, 140 

Gustavus Adolphus, 31 

Hamilton, Marquis of, 31 

Harvey, Sir John, governor of 
Virginia, 27, 28, 48 
opposition to, 62, 64 
expelled from Virginia, 65 

Hawley, Eleanor, 108 

Hawley, Jerome, 45, 46, 74, loi, 
108, 109 

Heamans, Roger, 151 

Henrietta Maria, 33 

Henry III., 36 

Henry IV. of France, 2 

Henry VII., 36 

Herman, Augustine, 163 

Hertingfordbury, 11 

Hill, Edward, deputy governor, 134 

" Holy Church," liberties of, 102 

Hook House, 93 

Indian trade, 77, 90, 91 
Indians, 59, 60, 61, 168 
Ingle, Richard, 119, 128 

arrest and escape, 129 

plunders St. Mary's, 130 

arrested, 131 

petitions Parliament, 144 
Ireland, 4, 5, 11 

James I. regard for Calvert, 4, 5, 6, 
. 8, 1 1,1., 13 
indecision, 8 



i8o 



INDEX. 



James I., change of policy, 12 
James river, 30 
Jamestown, 24, 27, 28, 48, 64 
Jersey, Island of, 141 
Jesuits, 5 

favour the colony, 100 

send out priests, loi 

object to laws, 103 

receive lands, 104, 125 

dangers from, 103, 104 

demands of, 109 

to be removed, 109 

conference with, iii 

questions to, 112, 114 

settlement with, 115 

Baltimore's distrust of, 120 

Kfxoughtan, 66 
Kent Island : 

Claiborne's station on, 43, 63, 
94, 96 

distress at, 66 

expedition against, 6-] 

population of, 72 

plundered by Claiborne's men 
132 

pacified, 134 
Kiplin, 3 

Kirke, Sir David, 31 
Kitamaquund, 125 

T,AKE, Sir Thomas, 6 

Lanca'ster, Duchy of, 36 

Laws initiated by Assembly, 87 

Leggett, John, 152 

Lennox, Duke of, 4 

Lewger, John, Secretary, 72, 76, 

, 79, 85 , 
draws up laws, 86 
opposes Jesuits, 105, 106 
judge, 124 

Lewis, William, 152 

Longford, County, 11 

Maryland, boundaries, 35 
charter, 35, 37 
government, 37 
hostility to, 42, 43 
advantages, 44 
scenery, 58 
arrival of colonists, 58 
reduced by Parliament, 144 
government remodelled, 144 
proprietary government re- 
stored, 156 

" Maryland money," 170, 172 

Matthews, Thomas, 62, 65, 153, 156 

MeclTlin, 2 

Militia law, 160 

r.lilitary discipline, 56 



Mines and salt works, 56 

Monopolies, 91 

More, Henry, Provincial of Jesuits, 

Mortmain, iii, 116 

Mynne, Anne, Lady Calvert, 4, 7,11 

Mynne, John, 4 

Naunton, Sir Robert, 6 

Naval battle on the Pocomoke, 66 

Neale, James, 129 

New Amstel, 163 

New Amsterdam, 163 

New England Company, 15 

Newfoundland. See Avalon 

New Netherlands, 163, 164 

Northumberland, Earl of, 4 

Nova Scotia, 63 



Oath of fidelity, 139 
Oath of supremacy, i 
Oxford, 3, 4, 87 
Oxford, Earl of, 4 
Oxfordshire, 83 



27 



Palatinate governments, 33, 36 
Palmer's Island, 67, 6^^ 73, 74, 81 _ 94 
Pascataway, Emperof of, 59, 80, 125 
Passamagnus river, 30 
Patunent river, 64, 79, 150 
Peaseley, Anne, 11, 116, 123 
Peaseley, William, 11, 12, 23, 123 
Pedro, John, 152 
Pembroke, Earl of, 31 
Pennington, Admiral, 40 
Philip ill., 8 
Philpot, Robert, 72, 81 
Placentia Bay, 18 
Pocomoke river, battle on, 66 
Point Comfort, 48, 58 
Poplar Island, 79 
Potomac river, 35, 48, 58, 59 
Pott, Governor of Virginia, 27 
Proclamation of Charles II., 140 

Cromwell, 147 
Proprietary rights, 36 

revenues, 92 
Providence, 139, 142, 150, 152 
Puritans, persecution of, 39, 138 

in Maryland, 138 

dissatisfied, 139 

masters of the Province, 147 

act of toleration, 147 

Quakers in Maryland, i6i 

order concerning, 162 
Quit rents, 92 

Raleigh, Sir Walter , 164 



INDEX, 



i8i 



Relations of Church and State, 112, 

114, 116, 124 
Rossetti, Archbishop, 109 

Sainte Claude (ship), 23, 28 

Seal of the Province, 135 

Secret trusts, 127 

Semley Manor, 93 

Senecas, 60 

Severn river, 139, 151, 156 

Shell-money, 169 

Ships detained, 40 

Simpson, Robert, 55 

Smith, Thomas, 64, 66, 69, 71, 72, 88 

Spanish marriage, 8, 9, 10, 12 

Spesutia Island, 163 

St. Clement's Bay, 58, 59 

St. Dunstan's Church, 33 

St. George, Richard, i 

St. George s river, 129 

St. Inigoes, 122 

St. Jean de Luz, 21 

St. Mary s, 60, 68, 69, 71, 72, 73, 75 

122, 130, 142 
St. Mary's Bay, 18 
Stone, William, governor, 135 

displaced and reinstated, 144 

resigns, 147 

resumes office, 150 

marches on Providence, 150 

taken prisoner, 151 
Stourton, charge against Calvert, 23 
Strafford, Earl of. See Wentworth 
Stuyvesant, Governor, 163 
Susquehanna river, 94 
Susquehannough Indians, 60, 68 

Talbot, Sir Robert, n 
Thirty Years' War, 7, 30 
Thurston, Thomas, 162 
Tindall, Thomas, 28 



Tisbury Manor, 93 

Tobacco, 167, 170 

Toleration in Maryland, 46, 57, 98, 

99, 124, 137, 147 
Tomkins, John, 73 
Trepassee Harbour, 21 
Trinity Bay, 18 
Trinity College, Oxford, 3. 87 

UNrcoRN (ship), 21 
Unton, Sir Henry, 2 
Upper House, 169 
Utie, Nathaniel, 163 
Utie, Philip, 65 

Vaughan, Robert, 70, 73, 84 
Vaughan, Sir William, 16 
Victory (ship), 23 

Virginia, 25, 27, 30, 43, 56, 64, 65, 
,,.^32, 143^ 

Virginia Company, 15, 27, 30, 42, 
95, 132 

Waldron, Resolved, 163 
Vv^annas, 127 

Wardour Castle, siege of, 127 
Warren, Ratcliffe, 65, 66 
Wentworth, Sir Thomas, 8, 29, 31, 

113 
Whitbourne, Richard, 16 
"White, Rev. Andrew, 45, loi 

journal, 58 

summoned to Assembly, 83,101 

letter to Baltimore, 89 

report to Provincial, 115 

sent to England, 131 
Wight, Isle of, 45 
Wiltshire, 83 
Wine, native, 91 

Yoacomico, 60 



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